Skip to Content News Archives Economy Energy Oil & Gas Renewables Electric Vehicles Mining Commodities Agriculture Real Estate Mortgages Mortgage Rates Finance Banking Insurance Fintech Cryptocurrency Work Wealth Smart Money Wealth Management Investor Personal Finance Family Finance Retirement Taxes High Net Worth FP Comment Executive Women Puzzmo Newsletters Financial Times Business Essentials More Innovation Information Technology FP500 Podcasts Small Business Lives Told Tails Told Shopping Financial Post Store Obituaries Place a Notice Advertising Advertising With Us Advertising Solutions Postmedia Ad Manager Sponsorship Requests Classifieds Place a Classifieds ad Working Profile Settings My Subscriptions Saved Articles My Offers Newsletters Customer Service FAQ News Economy Energy Mining Real Estate Finance Work Wealth Investor FP Comment Executive Women Puzzmo Newsletters Financial Times Business Essentials HomeFP CommentMatthew Lau: Don’t count daycare costs as benefitsEstimates of the benefits of public daycare are wrong to include wages paid to workers or construction costs of new facilities You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account.Stanford’s numbers on jobs and wages in the child-care sector prove nothing about economic benefits. All they show is that costs rose. Photo by Natalia Deriabina/Getty ImagesGovernment control of child care really must be expanded. I learned this by listening to an interview last week on the government-funded broadcaster (CBC) with a representative from an activist group (Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care) that has received significant government funding, talking about a report commissioned by her organization and written with input from the executive directors of two other child-care activist groups (Child Care Now and the Childcare Resource and Research Unit) that have also received large sums of money from taxpayers in recent years. Does anyone notice a theme here?Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman, and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountorThe report, authored by Jim Stanford of the Centre for Future Work, argues there are massive economic benefits to governmental child care, a conclusion reached mainly by categorizing government costs as economic benefits. The report was published, in the words of the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care representative, “as a way of trying to convince governments that if you expanded this program (the Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care program, or CWELCC), it would be doing so many great things.”Get the latest headlines, breaking news and columns.By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of Top Stories will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againAccording to the report: Ontario’s GDP in 2024 was much higher as a result of expanded government child-care spending from CWELCC; female labour force participation increased; the GDP growth raised provincial government revenue by $2.25 billion; and more than 17,000 jobs have been “created” in Ontario’s child-care sector since 2019, with average weekly earnings for child-care workers up 39 per cent since then.Yet none of this means economic benefits were actually delivered to families. Massive government spending on child care may indeed have shifted some women’s work efforts from the type that is highly valuable but does not show up in GDP statistics — namely, caring for children at home — to other types of work that do show up in GDP statistics. But that does not mean families benefited overall. Moreover, Stanford’s numbers on jobs and wages in the child-care sector prove nothing about economic benefits. All they show is that costs rose.There is a famous, although perhaps apocryphal, story of Milton Friedman on a visit to China, where he found thousands of workers building a canal with shovels instead of tractors and other modern equipment. He asked his Chinese host, a government bureaucrat, why they were using shovels instead of modern machinery. The bureaucrat said, “You don’t understand. This is a jobs program.” To which Friedman replied, “Oh, I thought you were trying to build a canal. If it’s jobs you want, you should give these workers spoons, not shovels!”The number of workers required to build a canal in China is a cost of the canal, not an economic benefit. Similarly, higher government-subsidized labour costs at daycares are a cost of government childcare, not an economic benefit. The benefit is the value of the actual care delivered to children — and notably absent from Stanford’s report is any good evidence that under CWELCC children are getting better child care. The report simply shows that costs have risen, and then labels the costs as benefits in order to conclude that massive benefits have been delivered.In support of his latest conclusions that increased government spending and control over child care have delivered massive economic benefits, Stanford cited a report he wrote two years ago which — surprise! — was also commissioned by an activist group that received much government funding (this time, Child Care Now).That earlier report counted, among other economic “benefits” of child care, the cost of constructing and renovating child-care facilities. Had CWELCC mandated that all child-care facilities be constructed by workers equipped with spoons, Stanford would have calculated even higher economic benefits from the program.Apart from the incorrect categorization of costs as benefits, the supposed benefits of the program are even more dubious, given that the number of Ontario children in a daycare centre, preschool, or child-care centre actually fell to 206,000 in 2025 from 216,400 in 2019. Meanwhile, among Ontario families using child care, 52.4 per cent had difficulty finding it in 2025, up sharply from 36.5 per cent in 2019. This problem is not unique to Ontario: the numbers show that accessing child care became more difficult in every province of Canada between 2019 and 2025.Directors of child-care activist groups receiving large sums of taxpayers’ money might count increased government spending as an economic benefit, but the evidence shows the opposite: increasing government control raised costs and created shortages. Join the Conversation This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.