Most of Canada has set fees for child care
"Set fees" means all families pay no more than a set amount ($10 per day, for example). This is how it works in Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, PEI, and Nunavut (at least for the vast majority of spaces).
But in BC, we're stuck with an unfair lottery
First, there's only enough licensed child care for ~25% of children age 0 through Grade 7 – with highly unequal access depending on where you live. So you have to be lucky to get any kind of licensed space. But you have to be even luckier to find a $10aDay, set fee space. Getting one is like winning the lottery.
Pick a region to see your odds👇
If you don't win the $10aDay lottery
Typical families – who don't win BC's unfair $10aDay lottery – pay thousands of dollars more per year for child care, because these programs lack government support to cap fees at $10 a day.
Pick a region to see how much more you'll have to pay👇
But the bad luck doesn't always stop there
The graphs and tables above show the large variability in median (typical) child care fees across BC's regions.
But within each region – and within individual communities – actual fees for non-$10aDay lottery-winners can swing wildly above and below the median.
For example, a 2023 study of fees covering Richmond, Burnaby, Surrey, Vancouver, and Kelowna found that for 3-5 programs:
If you're one of the particularly unlucky families paying $1300 per month, that's more than $13,000 per year in extra fees compared to someone who got a $10aDay spot.
What about BC's "child care fee reductions"?
For those who don't win the $10aDay lottery, the BC government offers a flat-rate fee reduction that varies by program type (these are already incorporated in the graphs and tables above).
These flat-rate reductions helped kick-start affordable child care in BC, but they were never recommended as a long-term solution.
Yes, they can bring down "average fees"....
... But families pay actual fees, not average fees. And as shown above if you don't win the $10aDay lottery, actual fees are all over the map.
Furthermore, the value of the BC government's one-off fee reductions are continually eroded by steadily rising market fees (see this 2022 article; 2025 study pending publication).
BC also provides additional fee reductions to some families who meet low-income and other eligibility criteria in the form of the Affordable Child Care Benefit. This program is a necessary supplement to a $10aDay set fee system because it can bring child care costs down to zero for those most in need. However, the contribution of ACCB to lowering average fees for some families (in combination with the "child care fee reductions") should not be interpreted as an alternative to $10aDay set fees. The maximum fee should be $10aDay for all families, dropping to zero for lower income families.
The solution
All of this unfairness, inconsistency and unpredictability is a result of BC's delay in switching to a maximum set fee system like most of Canada has already done.
The solution: make all child care programs $10aDay programs. Learn more here.
Data sources and methodology
- Data on the location and number of $10aDay spaces are as published by the BC government here (accessed May 10, 2025).
- Odds of "winning the $10aDay lottery" – i.e. the proportion of $10aDay spaces to total publicly-funded spaces – is calculated by dividing the total number of $10aDay spaces in each region (as derived above), by the total number of spaces in publicly-funded facilities as reported in Child Care Facilities and Spaces Over Time (from the BC Data Catalogue), as of March 2025 (accessed May 20, 2025). This dataset includes all spaces in facilities receiving either Child Care Operating Funding/CCOF or $10aDay funding, and represents the vast majority of all licensed spaces.
- Median fees for each region are as reported on BC Child Care Data and Reports ("Supporting Families" --> "Parent Fees" tabs), accessed May 20, 2025. The reported figures are for Group/Centre-based care.
- The "typical extra cost per year" for each age category is calculated assuming full-day fees for school-age care (e.g. assumes families are paying for before and after school care on school days, and full-day care during school closure days). In other words, $200 is subtracted from the median fee reported by the province for each type of care, and this is multiplied by 12 months.
Analysis by Eric Swanson, Third Space Planning.
