Good practice

Système pancanadien d'apprentissage et de garde des jeunes enfants (garderies à 10 $/jour)

Canada · Ottawa · See the Canada profile

Depuis 2021, le Canada a conclu des accords bilatéraux avec chaque province et territoire pour réduire les frais de garde vers 10 $/jour, coïncidant avec une participation record des mères au marché du travail et environ 29 000 mères supplémentaires en emploi fin 2025.

~16% → 5%

Dépense de garde en part du revenu familial après impôt (2021-2025)

75.8% → 79.6%

Taux d'activité des mères de jeunes enfants (2019-2023)

29,000

Mères supplémentaires en emploi attribuables au programme (2021-2025)

112,000 of 250,000+

Nouvelles places de garde créées vs objectif (by 2024/25)

Details

Maturity: Scaling
Promoter: Employment and Social Development Canada (federal government, with provincial/territorial bilateral agreements)
Period: 2021–present
Keywords: care economy, childcare, early learning, labour force participation, federalism

Context

Depuis 2021, le gouvernement du Canada a signé des accords bilatéraux d'apprentissage et de garde des jeunes enfants à l'échelle du Canada avec chaque province et territoire, engageant des transferts fédéraux (36,8 milliards CAD supplémentaires budgétés pour 2026-27 à 2030-31) en échange d'une réduction des frais de garde réglementés vers une moyenne de 10 $ par jour. En février 2025, huit provinces et territoires offraient la garde à 10 $/jour ou moins et tous les autres avaient au moins réduit les frais de moitié.

Results

La dépense moyenne des parents en garde d'enfants est passée d'un peu moins de 16 % du revenu familial après impôt avant 2021 à 5 % en janvier 2025, et le taux d'activité des mères de jeunes enfants a atteint le record de 79,6 % en 2023. Une analyse indépendante du Centre for the Study of Living Standards (juin 2026) a estimé que 29 000 mères supplémentaires ont trouvé un emploi et qu'environ 2,7 milliards CAD par an ont été ajoutés au PIB, tandis que le vérificateur général fédéral a constaté que seulement 112 000 environ des 250 000+ nouvelles places visées avaient été créées en 2024/25.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

C-NAPSE web research — accessed 2026-07-05
Employment and Social Development Canada (federal government, with provincial/territorial bilateral agreements) — accessed 2026-07-05
Canada.ca — Toward $10-a-Day: Early Learning and Child Care Backgrounder — accessed 2026-07-05
The Globe and Mail — More moms in work force, increased GDP as result of national $10-a-day child-care program — accessed 2026-07-05
The Globe and Mail — Five years into $10-a-day national child-care plan, many of its promises remain unfulfilled — accessed 2026-07-05

Quality score: 96/100

How is this calculated?

Evidence: Observational / pre–post

Top 4% in this catalogue (719 scored practices)

Scores cluster high, so position within the catalogue is often more telling than the number alone.

Evaluation

Evaluated by C-NAPSE

Score profile — the dimensions behind the score — how it's computed

Transferability / replicability2/3

A federal-cost-shared bilateral-agreement model transferable to other federations, though it depends on a specific fiscal-transfer architecture not all countries have.

Impact on gender equality1/1

Maternal labour-force participation with young children rose to a record 79.6% (2023) from 75.8% (2019), concurrent with the fee cuts, per government and independent reporting.

Effectiveness1/1

Average child-care cost as a share of after-tax family income fell from ~16% to 5% (Jan 2025), directly achieving the programme's affordability objective in most jurisdictions.

Efficiency1/1

Delivered through existing federal-provincial transfer mechanisms rather than a new delivery agency, though the Auditor-General found space-creation lagging targets, reflecting execution costs.

Evaluated outcomes1/1

Centre for the Study of Living Standards' independent June 2026 econometric analysis (Ali Shariati) quantified 29,000 jobs and CAD 2.7B/year in GDP using Labour Force Survey data.

Sustainability1/1

Multi-year bilateral agreements plus a further CAD 36.8 billion committed for 2026-27–2030-31 with built-in 3% annual escalators indicate durable federal funding commitment.

Achievement / evidence1/1

Concrete, government- and independent-verified milestones: 8 jurisdictions at $10/day, record maternal employment, and a quantified GDP/employment effect.

Gender-mainstreaming embedding1/1

Explicitly designed and marketed as a maternal-employment policy, with government tracking disaggregated by mothers of young children, showing gender is central to programme design.

Curator validation1/1

Figures cross-verified between the federal government's own backgrounder (canada.ca) and an independent economist's analysis reported by The Globe and Mail, converging on consistent employment estimates.

Cite this

Evidoria. Système pancanadien d'apprentissage et de garde des jeunes enfants (garderies à 10 $/jour). Persistent ID: 08cc62ac-431b-4c88-b6b2-88a4c68f7932.

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