Equal Pay Day Fund Ontario’s Child Care System to Close the Gender Pay Gap

2026 Ontario budget continues to ignore province’s promise to women to deliver a $10-a-day child care program with living wages for child care workers

TORONTO, April 14, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Equal Pay Coalition and member organizations mark Equal Pay Day on Tuesday, 14 April 2026 by calling on the Ontario government to fully fund the province’s child care child system and close the gender pay gap for child care workers.

Front-line workers, parents, trade unions leaders and community groups are coming together to say CARE COUNTS-WAGES MATTER. Women’s equality, both as users of child care and as employees working within the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) program, depends upon an expanded and a strengthened system.

Under CWELCC, Ontario parents were promised $10-a-day child care, an affordability measure that was never delivered. While other provinces have met these standards, Ontario lags well behind, stuck at $22 a day. In Ontario, child care educators are legally entitled to a pay equity compliant wage grid between $35 and $45 per hour, plus benefits and a pension. Without funding to pay Ontario’s child care workers what they are owed, there is high turnover, resulting in a lack of spots and an inconsistent care experience for the services. Seven other provinces provide educators with a wage grid.

“Child care is the backbone of our economy. Without the care of the workers, the economy doesn’t work,” says Fay Faraday, Co-Chair of the Equal Pay Coalition. “But Ontario’s child care system remains too expensive for parents and it vastly underpays child care workers, driving a staffing shortage in Ontario that causes waitlists to grow.”

“What would change if the men who shaped our societies also shared the daily responsibility of care?” asked Carolyn Ferns of the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, and “What would happen if our male leaders understood that care counts – to our communities and economies – and ensured that those who work in the care economy are paid decently?”

“Inequities in both paid and unpaid care work are one of the root causes of the gender pay gap”, says Amber Straker of the Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario, “That is why this Equal Pay Day we say CARE COUNTS-WAGES MATTER to highlight the urgent need to protect and expand child care services, and ensure Ontario educators are fully valued and paid what they are legally entitled to.”

“The 26 March 2026 provincial budget continues to fail both parents and child care workers,” says Jan Borowy, Co-Chair of the Equal Pay Coalition. “It utterly failed to deliver the much-needed expansion of funding to fully support care workers, women and their families. Most critically, the budget’s lack of new funding means child care workers’ wages remain discriminatorily low.”

On 8 April 2026, in advance of Equal Pay Day, the Equal Pay Coalition requested a meeting with the four key Ministers (Honourable Peter Bethlenfalvy, Paul Calandra, Charmaine Williams, and David Piccini) each with a role to ensure the success of the $10-a-day child care system in Ontario. The Coalition and its partner groups want to ensure the Ministers are aware of the child care system crisis. No Minister has yet responded to the Coalition.

The Coalition is holding an Equal Day Rally in Toronto at 12:15pm, 361 University Ave. at the Pillars of Justice with speakers from the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, the Association for Early Childhood Educators of Ontario, Parents for Child Care, the YWCA, CUPE, Unifor, OSSTF, OPSEU the Association of Midwives of Ontario, IBEW and the Ontario Federation of Labour.

About the Equal Pay Coalition

Since 1976, the non-partisan Equal Pay Coalition has been the main advocate for women’s pay equity in Ontario. The Coalition unites more than 40 women’s groups, trade unions, community groups and business organizations representing hundreds of thousands of women across the province.

About Equal Pay Day

Equal Pay Day is dedicated to raising awareness of the gender pay gap. It symbolizes how far into the year the average woman must work in order to have earned what the average man had earned the entire previous year. In Ontario, Equal Pay Day is Tuesday 14 April 2026.

For more information, please contact:

Jan Borowy, co-chair, Equal Pay Coalition, 416-985-2069 or
Fay Faraday co-chair, Equal Pay Coalition: 416-389-4399

Carolyn Ferns, Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, 647-218-1275

Amber Straker, Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario, 416 487-3157

www.equalpaycoalition.org
cochair1@equalpaycoalition.org

Child care is the bedrock of our economy. Without care work, no one works. Without care work, our economy does not work. The Ontario government is simply not living up to the promise to deliver on the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care program (“CWELCC”) as an essential public service. The March 2026 budget utterly failed women. It recycled previously announced child care space commitments. It failed to deliver the much-needed expansion of funding to fully support care workers, women and their families. Most critically, the lack of funding meant that child care workers continue to be paid low wages.

In March 2022, Ontario and Canada signed the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) Agreement, known as the $10-a-day child care program. The program provides direct public funding for child care spaces for children under age six. The program is built on four key principles: affordability, accessibility, inclusion and quality. Bill C-35, the federal Act governing the agreement, is premised on gender equality:

The recognition of “the beneficial impact of early learning and child care on child development, on the well-being of children and of families, on gender equality, on the rights of women and their economic participation and prosperity and on Canada’s economy and social infrastructure.” (Preamble)
“The recruitment and retention of a qualified and well-supported early childhood education workforce, recognizing that working conditions affect the provision of those programs and services.” (Section 7)

Ontario was allocated $10.23 billion by the federal government to build the new system and fund new child care spaces from 2022 to December 2025. There has not yet been a confirmed five-year renewal to 2031as originally promised. Instead, Ontario signed a one-year extension agreement to December 2026.

As the chart below demonstrates, Ontario’s 26 March 2026 Budget failed to deliver the funding needed to truly build the CWELCC program. To expand the CWELCC program in Ontario as promised, the wages and benefits for Registered Early Childhood Educators (RECEs) must be a priority to attract them to the sector and support them to build lifelong careers. At a minimum, CWELCC requires an infusion of $500 million dedicated to increase the wages of child care educators.

The Ontario government’s lack funding is a surprise. CWELCC creates significant economic benefits to the economy as a whole. According to the 2024 report of the Centre on the Future of Work, CWELCC drives significant job creation, expanded participation in the economy by parents, increased employment in the sector, increased earnings, improved consumer spending, GDP growth and improved fiscal benefits to the government through taxation.

The Child Care Program Promise	The Reality
Reduce child-care fees paid by families (parent fees) for children under age six to an average of $10 per day by March 2026.	In Ontario, parent fees are capped at $22, and not the promised $10-a-day average. Child care is a critical public program for women’s equality. Parent fees are not the primary source of revenue. In October 2025, Ontario’s Auditor-General concluded that there is a $1.95 billion funding shortfall if Ontario is to meet the CWELCC 2025 targets.
Increase access to child-care spaces through a primarily public program.	According to Ontario’s Auditor-General’s October 2025 report, the province has not met its target to create 47,000 new child care spaces. Ontario added 36,000 new spaces. Ontario is short 12,000 CWELCC spaces from the Dec 2025 target.
CWELCC required “the recruitment and retention of a qualified and well-supported early childhood education workforce, recognizing that working conditions affect the provision of those programs and services.”	Child care workers’ wages are simply too low to retain and recruit employees to build the system. Ontario’s Auditor General estimates the province is short 10,000 educators. A pay equity compliant wage grid would provide wages between $35 to $45 per hour for RECEs and $28 for non-RECE staff. Pension and benefit plans provide the recognition and respect they deserve. Ontario is one of three provinces that refuses to build a sectoral wage grid for child care educators. In 2024, the median wage for RECE’s was less than $25 per hour. Ontario’s limited minimum child care wage and wage enhancement programs are restricted to RECEs. There is no evidence to demonstrate compliance with the Pay Equity Act.
CWELCC required Ontario and the federal government to be equal funding partners.	No matter how you count it, Ontario is not paying its fair share. According to the Financial Accountability Office, Ontario’s child care spending per child is below the national average and less than either British Columbia or Quebec. The City of Toronto’s Social Services Service Plan 2025-2030 estimated that Ontario pays only approximately 26% of costs, while the Federal government pays 49%. (p 18) Other analysis shows that the province has flatlined its funding contributions to the sector.

On Equal Pay Day, the Equal Pay Coalition calls on the Ontario government to fully fund the province’s child care child system and close the gender pay gap for child care workers.

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