Canada has a national crisis of child care.
Beware whenever the government says it will intervene in some area of the economy to increase affordability or ensure quality. It means the government is about to destroy a market. Health care, rent control, labor relations, or anything else — the story is always the same. Canadians are now suffering the destruction of yet another market through the federal government’s takeover of child-care services. In 2021, the federal Liberal government committed $30 billion over five years, then $9.2 billion annually after that, to establish national $10-per-day child care. Researchers with the think tank Cardus estimate provincial governments will need to kick in at least another $4.2 billion (and possibly much more than that on top) to help achieve the Liberals’ child-care ambitions. Two years in, it’s already shaping up to be a massive disaster.
