By Mata Press Service

British Columbia parents are paying the highest child-care fees in Canada, with the median cost of an infant space reaching $52 a day in Richmond and $40 in Vancouver, according to a new national study tracking the progress of the federal $10-a-day program.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives report found all five B.C. cities it examined had higher median infant fees than any other city in Canada, five years after Ottawa and the provinces launched the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care program.

Richmond topped the national ranking at $52 a day, followed by Vancouver at $40, Burnaby at $38, Surrey at $36 and Kelowna at $28. By comparison, the median infant fee was $23 in Halifax, $22 in major Ontario cities, $15 in Alberta and $10 or less in 11 of the 35 cities studied.

The gap is also evident for preschool-aged children.

Median daily fees were $42 in Richmond, $32 in Vancouver, $31 in Surrey, $29 in Burnaby and $24 in Kelowna. Parents in Alberta's major cities pay $15, while those in Ontario pay $22. Families in Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Charlottetown, St. John's and Iqaluit pay $10, while the Quebec fee is $9.65.

The findings come at the end of the original five-year federal-provincial child-care agreements, which set a goal of bringing average fees for regulated care for children five and under to $10 a day by 2026.

B.C.'s original agreement with Ottawa explicitly committed the province to working toward an average $10 daily parent fee for all regulated spaces for children aged zero to five by the end of the five-year agreement.

The study, by CCPA senior economist David Macdonald and child-care researcher Martha Friendly, concludes that while fees have fallen substantially across the country since the national program began, the $10-a-day goal remains far from reality for many families.

British Columbia stands out because it continues to rely heavily on a system in which individual operators establish their fees and government subsidies reduce what parents ultimately pay.

Most other provinces have shifted to provincially established fees.

The report classifies B.C. among Canada's most complicated child-care fee systems because parents can face substantially different costs depending on the provider, the child's age and whether they manage to obtain one of the province's limited $10-a-day spaces.

B.C. has two main affordability models. Some centres and family child-care providers operate as designated $10-a-day facilities. Most others charge provider-set fees that are reduced through government payments.

The report says the value of B.C.'s flat-rate fee reduction has remained unchanged since December 2022, while providers have generally been permitted to raise their underlying fees by three per cent a year, with higher increases possible in some circumstances.

That means rising provider fees gradually eat into the value of the government subsidy and leave parents paying the difference, the researchers said.

The result is a wide range of prices even within the same city.

Vancouver provides one of the sharpest examples.

About 45 per cent of preschool spaces examined in the city cost $10 a day. At the opposite end of the market, 25 per cent cost more than $46 a day and the most expensive five per cent exceed $69.

Richmond has relatively few $10-a-day spaces. A quarter of parents there pay at least $57 a day for preschool care. Surrey also has fewer than 10 per cent of its preschool spaces priced at $10 a day.

The study also found a significant divide between private, for-profit centres and non-profit providers in B.C.

In Vancouver, for-profit centres charged at least $30 more per day than non-profits across most of the fee range studied. More than half of Vancouver's non-profit spaces included in the analysis were $10-a-day sites.

In Burnaby and Richmond, for-profit spaces generally cost between $20 and $40 more per day. Burnaby's highest non-profit fees reached $42 a day, compared with as much as $80 among for-profit centres.

The report notes that Vancouver has roughly twice as many non-profit spaces as for-profit spaces, while Burnaby and Richmond have more for-profit than non-profit care.

Despite B.C.'s comparatively high costs, families are still paying substantially less than they likely would have without the national program.

The researchers adjusted 2019 child-care prices for inflation to estimate what families might otherwise be paying today. They found B.C. parents with infants are generally saving between $300 and $500 a month.

Those savings, however, are among the smallest in the country. Families in many other Canadian cities are saving between $500 and $1,000 a month, while Toronto parents are saving more than $1,800 because fees there were particularly high before the federal program began.

Richmond recorded particularly modest savings for preschool care, at about $264 a month compared with inflation-adjusted 2019 costs.

The researchers calculated that reducing Richmond infant fees to a maximum of $10 a day would save parents another $900 a month. Vancouver parents would save about $648 monthly, while families in Burnaby and Surrey would save roughly another $500.

The findings land as B.C. enters the next phase of its child-care program.

Ottawa and Victoria have extended their child-care agreement through 2030-31, with the federal government committing about $5.38 billion to B.C. over five years. Since 2018, provincial and federal investments have helped increase the number of licensed child-care spaces in B.C. by nearly 59,000, according to the province, with another roughly 12,000 funded spaces in development.

The B.C. government has also temporarily paused adding new providers to both its Operating Funding Model and $10-a-day program while it reviews how childcare is funded. Existing $10-a-day centres are unaffected.

Nationally, Ottawa increased child-care funding by another $5.4 billion over two years in June, bringing federal spending to about $11 billion annually in 2026-27 and 2027-28.

Macdonald and Friendly argue the next stage should move provinces toward fixed maximum fees rather than relying on an average that can conceal large differences between families.

Their report also cautions that price is only one part of the child-care problem. Demand for reduced-fee spaces has increased, wait lists remain widespread and shortages of qualified early childhood educators continue to limit the number of spaces that can actually operate.

The study covers median base fees at licensed centres and regulated family child-care providers in 35 Canadian cities. It doesn't include extra charges for such things as meals, extended hours or waiting lists, nor does it account for additional income-tested subsidies available to some lower-income families.

Five years after the $10-a-day program began, the report concludes Canadian parents are generally paying considerably less for childcare.