Most of Canada has set fees for child care
Nine provinces and territories have implemented "set fees" for child care, meaning families pay a low, capped amount for the vast majority of licensed spaces (ranging from $10 to $22 per day).
But in BC, we're still stuck with an unfair lottery
First, there's only enough licensed child care for ~27% 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 parents don't pay median fees, they pay actual fees. And actual fees are all over the map.
For example, in Vancouver daily fees for non-$10aDay spaces can climb above $100/day, even after provincial fee reductions have been applied.
If you're one of the particularly unlucky families paying those high fees that's ~ $1,200 more per month or ~ $14,000 more per year in extra fees compared to someone who lucked out and 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 again: families pay actual fees, not average fees. And actual fees for non-$10aDay spaces swing wildly from close to $10 per day to more than $100 per day.
Furthermore, the value of the BC government's one-off fee reductions are continually eroded by steadily rising market fees (see this 2022 article).
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 those in deep poverty.
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.
Data sources and methodology
- Data on the location and number of $10aDay spaces are as published by the BC government here (accessed Sep 29, 2026).
- 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 June 2026 (accessed Sep. 10, 2026). 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 Sep 29, 2026. 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.
