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The federal government said Friday that daycare fees in Alberta have fallen to an average of $15 a day — however, access to the price level remains uneven and depends on the operator.

Federal Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault and Alberta Jobs Minister Matt Jones jointly announced the milestone, which is said to have been achieved in January when the Liberal government introduced a round of increased funding for daycares.

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The money is part of Ottawa’s vision to bring the price of daycare to an average of $10 a day. The goal resulted in an agreement in 2021 between Alberta and the federal government, which promised $9.8 billion over five years to meet the final target.

This vision was to be realized through a publicly-funded system, where the federal government’s largesse, meant for parents, would flow through the province, travelling further down the pipe via daycare operators. The funding, which was subtracted from parental fees, also came with a few conditions.

Daycare operators couldn’t drive up their fees by more than three per cent for the first year. By 2023, centres weren’t allowed to raise the price at all, and any compensations for cost increases were provided by the provincial government, capped at an annual rate of three per cent.

The funding was in addition to provincial subsidies to parents with lower incomes and topped-up wages for daycare staff, with some financial help from the federal government. (There was also a funding program for non-profits.)

These conditions were temporary until the province and the federal government signed off on a model in 2025 determining the specifics of a framework, including calculating the actual costs of daycare services that would be used to decide on public funding and an appropriate fee charged by such facilities.

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Fees laid out

In the meantime, the third round of the interim agreement in 2024 increased federal grants for parents sending their children to facilities offering full-time care.

Daycare fees for infants from ages 12 months and younger to 19 months were slashed by up to $883 a month at facilities providing full-time care. The discount was a maximum of $1,324 for overnight care. In addition, the price tag for daycare services was trimmed by $709 for children younger than three and $626 for those aged between three and four.

However, grant funding wasn’t increased for operators, such as pre-schools, providing part-time care — between 50 and 99 hours. For instance, the grant money for infants less than 12 months old and those 19 months and younger remained at $317.50, with the financial assistance dropping to $225 for children aged between 19 months and four years old.

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Moreover, fees for after-school care were reduced by $626 for full-time services, while the discount for part-time care is now $225.

$15 a day daycare average across Alberta

However, the increase in funding hasn’t brought the fees for daycare to $15 a day across the province, thanks to a varying price ranges. The rate is instead an average, which is also determined by factors separate from government funding, said Krystal Churcher, chair of the Association of Childcare Entrepreneurs.

One factor driving the drop in the average fees, said Churcher, is the price charged by older operators, which first signed on to the program in 2021. Most of these daycares reduced their fees in 2020 to entice parents as society emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

But the agreement locked those amounts to a maximum increase of three per cent while barring service providers from raising their prices the next year and strengthening their reliance on government funding — a challenge that newer operators haven’t had to face, Churcher added.

“So (newer operators) can create a fee based on the actual market cost of providing childcare in that area with those services, including rent and other things — they can make more of an educated informed decision on fees,” Churcher said.

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“(The government) then averages that to make sure that the majority of the province has a fee average of $15.”

Province to dispense funding at the start of the month

Another major challenge that operators previously faced was at times more than a month-long delay in receiving federal funding from the provincial government, which forced many to float thousands of dollars in debt and contemplate closing their doors.

But the province last month announced it would dispense the funding at the start of the month, and create a new grant to meet the administrative costs of applying for financial assistance. Churcher said the tweak has now allowed her and other daycare operators to “sleep at night.”

“It was the first month in two years that I personally haven’t had to transfer money out of my own family savings to cover my business expenses until I get reimbursed by the government.”

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