The Universal Child Care Plan provides spaces…

New Child Care Spaces

To help Canadians juggle child care and work responsibilities, the Government of Canada has announced it will support the creation of new child care spaces through a transfer to provinces and territories, which are responsible for the delivery of child care programs and services.

As per Budget 2007, we are transferring $250M per year to provinces and territories to support their priorities for child care spaces. A transfer allows provinces and territories sufficient flexibility to meet the needs of families within their respective jurisdictions.

Funding will flow through the Canada Social Transfer, beginning in 2008-2009, following discussions with provinces and territories on how best to make use of those investments and to ensure reporting and accountability to Canadians.  Transition payments totalling $250 million were made on an equal per capita basis to each province and territory at the end of June 2007, for fiscal year 2007-2008. 

This funding is in addition to other transfers to the provinces and territories for early childhood development and early learning and child care.  All told, federal transfers to provinces and territories in support of families with children total $1.1 billion this year and will grow by three per cent annually to almost $1.3 billion by 2013-2014.

In addition, Budget 2007 announced a 25-per-cent investment tax credit to businesses that create new child care spaces in the workplace to a maximum of $10,000 per space created.