The Cost Control Framework and For-Profit Expansion Plan, released in January 2023, is intended to be an important step in implementing Alberta’s version of a Canada-wide system of early learning and child care. It provides insights into the intentions of the Alberta government, but the absence of critical details makes it difficult to anticipate what lies ahead.

In this brief, Rob Buschmann and Jennifer Fischer-Summers provide an update on the latest fees for licensed early learning and care in Edmonton. They also show that 2020 continues an ongoing trend of early learning and care fees outpacing inflation in the city since 2014. Finally, they discuss what fees in Edmonton might look like in 2021.

The Child Care Act and Regulation provides the legislative basis for early learning and care in Alberta. The Act has undergone review by the Ministry of Children’s Services, and a new Act was tabled in the Legislature in November 2020. This report is a comprehensive review of how jurisdictions can, and do, support quality in early learning and care through a combination of regulation and other policy vehicles and mechanisms.

Provides an introduction to child care subsidies in Alberta, outlines and analyzes some of the recent changes to subsidies, provides suggestions for improving the subsidy system and the general affordability of early learning and care in Alberta, and concludes by providing some perspective on the role of affordability within a high-quality early learning and care system.