Alternative Federal Budget RECOVERY PLAN - July 2020

The opinions and recommendations in this report, and any errors, are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funders of this report. [...] The scale of these transfers and their speed is unprecedented and illustrates the power of the federal government and the competence of public service workers when given the chance. [...] Toward a just recovery The AFB Recovery Plan will implement the updated Affordable Child Care for ALL Plan5, which calls for a two-phased approach by the federal government in the aftermath of COVID-19: • In the first phase, the plan calls for $2.5 billion for early learning and child care in new federal transfers to the provinces/territories 40 Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and Indigeno. [...] Agreements with each province and territory would ensure that the federal funds are used for: • A safe restart of child care programs; • Restoration and expansion of the number of licensed child care spaces that existed prior to the pandemic; • Increases in wages and other compensation for those who work in early learning and child care to ensure the return and retention of staff to the sector; •. [...] In this second phase of early learning and child care system construction, the focus would be on expanding availability of licensed child care, making early learning and child care more affordable and on improving the quality of programs, primarily through the development and implementation of a workforce strategy and the application of the best available evidence.