Access 

• In this analysis we use the term "access" in its narrow sense as a synonym for the more technical term of "coverage", referring to the existence of licensed child care spaces (not to e.g. inclusion considerations, which impact "access" in the broader sense of the term). 
• The reported access is to licensed, publicly-funded spaces receiving either Child Care Operating Funding (CCOF) or $10aDay operating funding, which account for the vast majority of all licensed spaces.
• The analysis seeks to answer the basic question: how many children have access to a licensed, publicly-funded child care space? However, the number of children who might need care at any given time (specifically 3-Kindergarten care, and school-age care) fluctuates significantly with the rhythm of the school year. There are a variety of different methods to account for this fluctuation. In our analysis, we assume that the planning goal for a universal system is to ensure that maximum monthly demand is met. To this end, we select the time of year when the number of cohorts of children who might need 0-Kindergarten care is mathematically at its highest (the end of August). In this way, the analytical question more technically becomes: for what percentage of children during the next month of maximum potential demand does BC – and each individual school district – currently have a licensed, publicly-funded child care space?  

Population

• Population data is from BC Stats, and are projections for Jul 1, 2025 (accessed May 20, 2025). These projections are used as a proxy for the population on Aug 31, 2025 (the point-in-time used in the analysis).

Spaces 

• Space data is from Child Care Facilities and Spaces Over Time (from the BC Data Catalogue), as of March 2025 (accessed May 20, 2025).  
• Data on funded but not yet operational spaces are from BC Child Care Data and Reports (the "Accelerated Space Creation" tab), as of March 2025 (accessed May 20, 2025). 
• Part-time “Preschool” programs are included in the calculations. However, as noted in the "Full Details" version of the tables above, the higher the percentage of 3-K spaces provided by part-time Preschool, the more the statistics might (1) overestimate current child care access, because some families in part-time care might actually be in need of full-time care; and therefore (2) underestimate the gap to universal access. 
• Data on average number of children of different ages in home-based programs is from Statistics Canada Table 42-10-0051-05. This is used as a best-available proxy for the breakdown of ages in group multi-age programs. 
• Space data is not available for SD 92 (Nisga'a), and this analysis is not applicable to SD 93 (Conseil scolaire francophone) because it is a province-wide district; these two districts are therefore excluded from the analysis. 

Universal access

• Universal access for children under 3 is assumed to align with the 2023 Barcelona Targets (45% average coverage for children under 3). It is expected that demand for child care will vary significantly from year to year within this range (much lower for newborns and young infants, higher for 1 and 2 year-olds). However, it is the overall 3-year average that is used in the calculations.  
• Universal access for children ages 3 to Kindergarten is also assumed to align with the 2023 Barcelona Target of 96% coverage for children between the age of 3 and the starting age for compulsory primary education. 
• Universal access for children 0 - K is calculated as a "simple average" (not adjusted for cohort population sizes), by multiplying: (45% * 3 years) + (96% * 2.67 years) / 5.67 years. It is 2.67 years for the 3-K group because the point-in-time used in the analysis is August 31 (at which point 2/3rds of 5-year olds would not yet be in Kindergarten).  
• Universal access for school-age children is assumed to align with the results of BC's 2024 school-age demand survey. These rates vary from region to region (each school district is assigned its region's reported overall demand level), which is why the overall universal coverage percentage, as well as the school-age universal coverage percentage, varies from region to region in the tables above. 
• The universal coverage line in the graph is set at 63% across all age groups (0-Grade 7 inclusive). This is a BC-wide figure, and is calculated using a "simple average" of the component universal access assumptions (i.e. it is not adjusted for cohort sizes).
• Arguably the best way to determine BC-specific targets for universal access/coverage would be through the kind of calendar-based "Child Care Management System" described in the 2025 report "Child Care When Families Need It". This would allow for real-time, geographically customized estimates of total demand for child care services of different types. Importantly, this would also allow for a transition away from coarse analysis of "spaces" towards a fine-grained analysis of the number of care hours needed (and their nature), and would also allow for fine-grained analysis of current supply.

Gap to universal access

• The "years to build universal access at current pace" calculations are based on the average annual rate of growth in publicly-funded child care spaces (CCOF and $10aDay) in each district from April 2018 to Mar 2025 (a 7-year average). This growth will have resulted from either (a) existing spaces opting into public funding, or (b) the creation of brand new child care spaces. The most recent two years (Mar 2023 to Mar 2025) have seen more rapid BC-wide growth than this longer-term average; for example the BC-wide growth rate from Mar 2024 to Mar 2025 was 30% higher than the next most rapid year, and Mar 2023 to Mar 2025 saw the most rapid two-year rolling average growth rate since 2018 (42% higher than the next highest 2-year average). It is not clear whether these more recent growth rates will be sustained; as such we use the full 7-year average in the calculations. 
• The rate of growth, derived as described above, is then applied to BC's 2025 population projections (i.e. we avoid using more complex approaches that would incorporate projected population changes in each district). Because BC's population of children is expected to decline towards 2030, and then stabilize and grow thereafter, our approach can be interpreted as overestimating years to build universal access through 2030, and underestimating it thereafter. 

For a spreadsheet describing how the above data and assumptions were used to construct the coverage calculations, click here. 

Analysis performed by Eric Swanson, Third Space Planning.