B.C. to prohibit daycare waitlist fees

Starting in April 2024, child-care providers in British Columbia that receive financial support from the province will no longer be able to charge parents for putting their children on waitlists.

The changes are part of funding guidelines released by the provincial government this week, set to take effect over 2024 and 2025.

"This will ensure that waitlist fees are not a financial barrier for families seeking equitable access for child care throughout the province," a provincial website said about the change.

Child care advocates say charging parents to be put on a waitlist for hard-to-come-by spaces for their children is a cash grab.

"This has been a long time coming," said Sharon Gregson with the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of B.C., who has been advocating for $10-per-day child care since 2010.

Ontario introduced legislation banning waitlist charges in 2016, which also requires transparency from providers to advise parents where they stand on any waitlist.

"That would be welcome in B.C. as well, so parents have that kind of transparency," Gregson said.

Fees quickly add up

Gregson said fees for waitlists, which range from $20 to $500 per child, can quickly add up as parents put their names on several lists to try to secure a spot.

"It's very expensive for families when they need to put themselves on multiple waiting lists to increase their chances of eventually finding a space. It can be well over a $1,000 plus," she said. "It's a problem."

B.C. has been working to make daycare spaces in the province more affordable, and available, for the past five years under its ChildCare B.C. Plan and has partnered with Ottawa as part of a $30-billion federal funding initiative to introduce $10-a-day child care across Canada.

As a result, 94 per cent of licensed child-care providers in B.C. are participating in what's known as the Child Care Fee Reduction Initiative, meaning they receive provincial support and will be covered by the new waitlist fee rules.

15,000 new spaces now open, says minister

B.C.'s Ministry of Education and Child Care said in August it has funded the creation of almost 32,000 licensed spaces since 2018, with more than 11,800 of the new child-care spaces now operational.

On Thursday, B.C.'s Minister of State for Child Care Grace Lore said the number of new child-care spaces now operating had grown to 15,000.

"We're taking an all-hands on deck approach to this over spaces, to affordability, to educators and that work will continue," she said.

Statistics Canada said in a report this week that the average amount parents in Canada paid for their main full-time child-care arrangement was $544 per month in 2023, down from $649 in 2022.

The agency said the decrease in child-care expenses occurred at the same time as many provinces and territories began implementing reductions in child-care fees.

Majority of targets missed, report says

A report by public-policy group Cardus, released in October, found that the $30-billion federal funding initiative to bring $10-a-day child care across Canada has created a fraction of the new spaces expected in the first year of operation in three provinces that were assessed.

The report said B.C., Saskatchewan and New Brunswick missed a majority of targets on items such as new spaces, spending and public accessibility to affordable child care.

A 2019 survey by Metro Vancouver said on average, there are 18.6 child-care spaces per 100 children aged 12 and under in the region.

Gregson said about 75 per cent of children in B.C. don't have access to a licensed child-care space.

"And that's the expansion problem that we've got to deal with," she said. "At the end of the day it's actually the waiting lists that we want to get rid of too. We don't want parents to have to be in crisis, waiting to see if they've got a space."