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Provinces won't be able to use federal child-care funding to subsidize their own programs under the terms of a national framework set to be unveiled in the coming days.
Instead, the Trudeau government wants provinces and territories to use the money for regulated operations geared specifically for families in need — low income, indigenous, single-parent, or in under-served areas — and children under six.
The broad strokes of the agreement are contained in a Manitoba cabinet order recently posted online.
The order says the government has told provinces they must use the funding to "build on" —"not replace or displace" — existing spending in regulated child care.
The national child care framework sets out the governing principles for the 10-year child-care spending plan the government unveiled in March: quality, accessibility, affordability, flexibility and inclusivity.
The details emerging about the deal are giving those in the child care sector reason to pause, wondering whether the deal will be as effective as they had hoped.
The reaction was much the same to the billions in new spending unveiled in the March federal budget: Things look good at first, with Ottawa back at the table with ideas and money, but questions emerge when going through the details.
Many child care experts would rather see federal funding used on child care spaces available to any family, given that the need for child care crosses income levels, said Don Giesbrecht, CEO of the Canadian Child Care Federation.
"As an aspirational document, I'm not seeing what we would like to see —a more fulsome approach," he said.
"The government of Canada could certainly inspire and promote through its expenditures and through its multilateral framework a lot more aspiration to really address all of the issues that impede child care from being what it needs to be."
The framework agreement will be released Monday when provincial and territorial leaders meet in Ottawa to sign on to the parameters for individual funding deals. No specific funding agreements, however, are expected to be unveiled.
A spokesman for Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said the framework will be discussed at Monday's meeting, but offered no other details about the agenda.
The Liberals have been negotiating the overarching framework for more than a year with the provinces and territories, seeking common ground in an area of provincial and territorial jurisdiction with different systems in place across the country.
The agreement will make note of that division of power and that provinces and territories will be able to determine their early learning and child-care investment priorities.
The March budget outlined $7 billion in new child-care funding from the federal government, starting with $500 million this fiscal year and increasing to $870 million annually by 2026.
Part of the money will also go towards funding indigenous child care on-reserve, to be subject to a separate indigenous framework.
The Liberals say the money over the next three years could potentially create 40,000 subsidized spaces.
The spending has been criticized for being less than what the Paul Martin Liberals offered provinces more than 10 years ago in a deal that was ultimately scuttled when the Conservatives came to office under Stephen Harper.
The Liberals will require provinces to identify where they plan to use federal money as part of individual funding agreements that "result in concrete, incremental improvements" to provincial child-care systems and publicly report annually on progress.
A key aspect to the deal will be defining success. The Liberals have already put $195 million in the coming years on research to close data gaps on child care.
A study released Thursday from the Caledon Institute of Social Policy found that there is still a lack of data on the quantity, quality, effectiveness and affordability of early childhood development services. The study said that the gaps are important because research has shown that high quality child care, "not just any programs," can make a difference in children's lives.