Nearly 80% of young children in N.L. — 2nd most in Canada — live in child-care desert, says new report

Nearly 80 per cent of children who are not yet school age in Newfoundland and Labrador live in an area that is considered a child-care desert, according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Newfoundland and Labrador ranks second-worst in the percentage of children who live in child-care deserts, said David Macdonald, a senior economist who co-authored the report, released Tuesday morning.

"That's in large part due to the smaller towns and rural areas in Newfoundland, where almost all children live in child-care deserts," said Mcdonald.

The only province that fared worse than N.L. is Saskatchewan, where 92 per cent of children live in a child-care desert, defined as an area where there are more than three children for every available regulated space. Prince Edward Island and Quebec have the best coverage at four and 11 per cent respectively, according to the report. 

Almost half of young children in Canada — 48 per cent — live in a child-care desert, says the report.

A severe shortage of regulated and unregulated child care in Newfoundland and Labrador has simmered into a crisis where some families are considering leaving the province, while others have had to give up their jobs to care for their children.

The report, titled Not Done Yet: $10-a-day Child Care Requires Addressing Canada's Child Care Deserts, says demand for child care is far outpacing supply as child-care fees drop and it becomes more affordable.

The report also comes on the heels of separate report released last month, which said that as of 2021 there were only enough regulated spaces for 14 per cent of children in the province — half the national average.  

Tuesday's report says St. John's has the worst coverage of the 37 cities studied for infant care, with space for only five per cent of children under 18 months.

"St. John's in particular has almost no licensed infant spaces there. It's just very few," said Macdonald.

Macdonald said there is also a stark urban-rural divide — all children in the province's rural areas live in a child-care desert.

"Even in St. John's, however, the proportion of children living in a child-care desert is greater than the national average, at 53 per cent," reads the report. 

Macdonald says it's not impossible to provide more child-care spaces in rural areas. 

"Prince Edward Island, for instance, and New Brunswick ranked much better than Newfoundland, and they have plenty of rural areas, even rural parts of Quebec," Macdonald said. "Coverage rates there are still pretty good and far better than they are in Newfoundland, Labrador." 

As governments plan to add new child-care spaces, said Macdonald, they need to think about more than physical infrastructure needed for daycares. 

The biggest challenge to building a new, affordable child-care system across the country, he said, is staffing it with qualified workers.

"But they often don't stay there for very long because the pay is bad and the hours are bad and the working conditions are often poor," he said. "And so one of the big challenges will be paying folks enough and giving them good working conditions to stay in these spaces." 

New child-care spaces will need to be more equitably distributed across rural and urban areas in the country," said Macdonald.

"It matters which age group.… It matters where it is, in terms of big cities versus small towns versus rural areas.… Those are all important considerations when we roll out these new spaces," he said.

"Now is the time for these plans to be put together, put together quickly so that parents can take advantage of these much more affordable child-care spaces."

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