The problem with cheap but scarce daycare

There is a scandal unfolding in British Columbia as the embattled premier, David Eby, revealed his family has a $10/day daycare spot. Subsidized $10/day daycare has rolled out unevenly across Canada. B.C. began its own $10/day pilot in 2018, while the federal government launched its Canada-wide program in 2021 (Quebec began its own subsidized daycare program in the late 90s). Access to the program is not means-tested, but like many other services in Canada, only access to the waitlist is universal.

Eby subsequently explained that one of his children was already attending the daycare when it was designated a $10/day site. He also claimed to have “donated the difference” to his childcare provider in order to offset the financial subsidy his family does not need.

There is no evidence that Eby’s family received preferential treatment to get a $10/day spot (although some wonder why a daycare in Vancouver’s wealthy Point Grey neighbourhood would receive a $10/day designation from the province in the first place). And his case does not illustrate a wealthy family somehow jumping the waitlist for subsidized daycare: his child was already enrolled before the designation.

But this scandal does remind me of the general trend here: when subsidized daycare spaces are scarce, access favours families with the time, flexibility, and knowledge to work the system. White-collar professionals are more likely to have the means to answer calls during business hours, visit facilities on short notice, and pay to reserve spots before they need them.

Quebec has experienced this problem with its subsidized daycare program for decades. A 2021 survey found that only 38% of low-income families began searching for daycare before their child was born, compared with 63% to 74% of families in higher income brackets. Starting earlier confers an advantage in a first-come, first-served system. Quebec changed its admissions system in late 2025, partly to address these inequalities. Still, the waitlist is only part of problem. The conventional operating hours of subsidized daycares can also make them inaccessible to shift workers and other parents with irregular schedules.

This doesn’t mean that most of the benefits of programs like $10/day daycare go to wealthy families. But it raises the possibility that the families most in need of affordable daycare may also be the least equipped to secure it. Making a scarce service cheap doesn’t end rationing. It just converts rationing by price to rationing by time, flexibility, and bureaucracy-fu.