New Brunswick signs onto $10-a-day child-care deal with Ottawa

New Brunswick has signed a deal with Ottawa that will eventually reduce child-care costs to $10 per day. 

In making the announcement on Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said "by this time next year, child-care fees for families across New Brunswick will be cut in half." 

Within five years, the average price for child care in New Brunswick will be $10 a day. That will save families about $7,500 a year on average, said Trudeau, who had mistakenly said this would happen in 10 years but was later corrected.

The agreement features an investment of $544 million over the next five years — $491 million from the federal government and $53 million from the province. 

Premier Blaine Higgs said that's in addition to more than $70 million invested each year.

Higgs said the program will also create 5,700 child-care spaces within the next five years. 

A news release from the province said wages of early childhood educators will increase by nearly 25 per cent under the agreement, and more training opportunities will also be created.

"We're going to support workers in early childhood education with a wage grid, and we'll boost the number of trained educators as well," Higgs said. 

"The bottom line is we're going to make life more affordable. We're going to grow the economy by allowing more parents, particularly moms, to rejoin the workforce, and we're going to give kids the best possible start as they begin their schooling."

The federal budget allocated $27.2 billion over five years to the provinces and territories, starting in the current fiscal year, to halve the cost of child care in Canada in the first year and reduce fees to $10 a day by 2025-26 while creating new spaces.

With New Brunswick and the Northwest Territories now on board, that leaves Ontario the only province that hasn't yet committed to the program.