The federal Liberals are making childcare a top priority in the first budget tabled in two years.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland presented the budget on Monday, revealing plans to spend $30 billion on childcare over five years.
She said that within five years, parents should have access to early learning and childcare for an average of $10 a day.
“Early learning and childcare has long been a feminist issue. COVID has shown us that it’s an urgent economic, too,” she said in the House of Commons.
Childcare has taken centre stage amid the pandemic with economists at RBC concluding in a fall 2020 report that family responsibilities that women typically shoulder have put that demographic on a “divergent and troubling trajectory.”
Nearly 68,000 men joined the labour force while 20,600 women departed between February and October of last year, according to RBC’s report.
The Liberals are currently governing a minority government and will require the support of opposition to pass the budget.
The inclusion of the $10 a day childcare program — a cornerstone of the NDP’s campaign in the 2019 election — appears poised to get the backing of the NDP.
More to come …
@reporton
