Most Ontario daycare costs now capped at $22 per day

The cost of licensed daycare has now been capped at $22 a day for centres enrolled in the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) program.

The province said they still have an agreement with the federal government to limit daycare costs at $10-a-day by March 2026 but, until then, the plan was always to lower costs a little at a time.

Previously, infant rooms were the most expensive for parents because of the required teacher to child ratio.

Starting in 2025, all infant, toddler and pre-school rooms will all cost the same.

Lori Prospero, the CEO of Rising Oaks Early Learning Ontario which has nine locations in Waterloo Region, said the changes are good for parents and providers too.

In the past, some daycare centres complained they weren’t reimbursed enough and weren't given enough information to plan their business decisions.

Prospero said she’s seen improvement.

“Rather than having funding for replacing the fees that we're losing, instead we now have a funding formula that's based on benchmarks, so its a cost-based funding approach,” she explained.

Prospero feels the new funding formula, which went into effect Jan. 1, made the process more transparent and easier to pre-plan.

"Preliminary information suggests that the funding formula is going to be more than enough to cover our expenses, and we're able to actually go back and look at some areas for growth or to enhance quality that we haven't been able to look at before. So that's excellent news.”

The YMCA of Three Rivers, in a statement to CTV News, stated: “The Canada-Wide Early Learning Child Care (CWELCC) program is a positive step in ensuring families have access to high-quality early learning and childcare.”

No one has opted out

CTV News also reached out to the Region of Waterloo for comment.

“To date there are 10 operators who are not enrolled in CWELCC, some who did not opt in to CWELCC in 2022 when it was introduced and others that have opened since 2022 and did not apply or were not approved. No operators locally have opted into CWELCC and then withdrawn.”

Cost for older kids going up

In 2022, the Region of Waterloo’s licenced daycare waitlist had around 5,580 names on it. Now that more parents feel they can afford it, demand has gone up. There are currently over 10,000 children on the waitlist.

And while fees for younger kids have dropped, the cost for older children has increased at Rising Oaks and other providers, including some YMCA locations.

For a child six and older, it may cost more than a full day of daycare for before and after school programs.

Both Rising Oaks and the YMCA said it’s to cover inflationary costs.

“It is important to note that funding for before/after care programs is unrelated to funding for CWELCC. Any fee changes are most likely a result of inflationary costs, which are very common to our operators,” explained the YMCA of Three Rivers.

Prospero said government intervention for older aged children is also something she’s discussed with the board of directors at Rising Oaks.