Just the Facts - Child and Family
HRSDC Just the Facts – a feature to help dispel myths and misconceptions as well as raise awareness about HRSDC programs.
Child Care
Issue
Supporting the child care choices of Canadian families.
Fact
The federal government is committed to helping parents balance work and family life. It is important to provide parents with real choices in deciding what is best for their children. That is why support to families with children is being provided through direct spending and tax measures for families and transfers to provinces and territories.
Parents now have child care choices through the Universal Child Care Plan, which includes the Universal Child Care Benefit and the creation of child care spaces.
The Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB) provides $100 per month for children under the age of six. The benefit puts choice for child care where it belongs-in the hands of parents-and allows them to choose the option that best suits their family's needs. The UCCB provides about $2.6 billion per year to 1.5 million families for 2 million young children.
Budget 2010 reiterated the federal government’s commitment to helping parents balance work and family life, and to providing them with real choices in deciding what is best for their children. Budget 2010 made changes to improve the taxation of the UCCB to ensure that single-parent families receive tax treatment comparable to that of two-parent families. Another measure of interest for families is the proposal to allow parents with joint custody to split their monthly child benefit payment to ensure that benefits are paid in a timely fashion to help both parents meet the needs of their children.
In addition, the federal government supports families with children through the amount for children, which provides up to $315 in tax savings for each child under the age of 18. This is an additional $1.5 billion per year in tax support for families with children.
To help Canadian parents better balance child care and work responsibilities, the federal government is investing in the creation of new child care spaces. A 25 percent investment tax credit for child care spaces is available to businesses that create new child care spaces for their employees, to a maximum of $10,000 per space created.
The federal government is also providing an additional $250 million per year to the provinces and territories to help support the creation of tens of thousands of new child care spaces across the country.
This is in addition to existing funding for early childhood development and early learning and child care transferred to provinces and territories through the Canada Social Transfer ($850 million this year, which grows by 3 percent annually), has been extended to 2013-2014.
All told, the Government of Canada is providing nearly $6 billion in 2010-2011 to support early childhood development and child care through transfers to the provinces and territories, direct spending and tax measures for families, including:
- $1.167 billion to the provinces and territories in support of early childhood development and child care, which will increase to almost $1.3 billion by 2013-2014.
- About $2.6 billion annually through monthly payments to parents for every child under the age of six through the Universal Child Care Benefit.
- $750 million in recognition of child care expenses through the Child Care Expense Deduction.
- About $1.5 billion per year in tax support for families with children through the amount for children.