Federal daycare program “disrupted” New Brunswick’s child care landscape

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

8 May, 2025

New Brunswick struggled to spend millions of federal dollars during the first two years of the national child care program. A new report from non-partisan think tank Cardus examines provincial reports and audited statements revealing slow progress toward achieving the aims of the $10-a-day child care program.

Including unspent funds carried over from year one, the province had $135 million in federal funding available in year two of the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement, but spent just $79 million.

“New Brunswick is following the same pattern as every province or territory Cardus has studied—leaving tens of millions of dollars unspent because the federal daycare program is too complex, too bureaucratic, and too inflexible implement,” says Peter Jon Mitchell, the report author and the family program director at Cardus.

Creating new child care spaces is also proceeding very slowly in New Brunswick. The province reports creating 791 spots by the end of year-two of its agreement with the federal government. While that exceeded the province’s modest short-term target, it left New Brunswick far behind its five-year target of 3,400 new spaces.

Despite the challenge in spending funds, the New Brunswick managed to reduce parent fees by 50 percent of 2019 fees ahead of schedule. The province also introduced a prototype program to offer free care to four-year-olds from low-income families, filling 79 of the targeted 100 spaces. Finally, New Brunswick also introduced a wage grid for child care workers to improve their pay and keep workers from leaving their field for better-paying work elsewhere.

“Implementation for the federal daycare program isn’t just complex, it’s also disrupting the entire child care landscape of New Brunswick,” says Mitchell. “Rate freezes in year two of the national program put significant strain on child care operators. What’s worse, the majority of New Brunswick families with young children still don’t benefit from this program. Delivering help to parents directly would be much more effective in making child care affordable for all families.”

Child Care Funding Update: New Brunswick—Year Two (2022–23) is freely available on the Cardus website.

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MEDIA INQUIRIES
Daniel Proussalidis
Cardus – Director of Media & Public Relations
media@cardus.ca
613-241-4500 x508

Cardus – Imagination toward a thriving society
Cardus is a non-partisan think tank dedicated to clarifying and strengthening, through research and dialogue, the ways in which society’s institutions can work together for the common good.