No More Waitlist Fees

Photo by Gautam Arora Unsplash

As of April 1, 2024, licensed child-care providers in B.C. can no longer charge families a fee to be on their waitlists.

As announced in the Government of B.C. Child Care Operating Funding guidelines for 2024, “Starting April 1, 2024, child care providers receiving CCOF can no longer charge waitlist and waitlist-related fees. This will ensure waitlist fees are not a financial barrier for families seeking equitable access for child care in B.C.”

As well, starting in 2024–25, the Child Care Fee Reduction Initiative is being aligned with education-based regions to “help the program remain regionally responsive and further child care’s integration into the Ministry of Education and Child Care”.

Interviewed by Chad Pawson for a CBC News article on December 7, 2023, Sharon Gregson, of the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of B.C., noted that Ontario introduced legislation banning waitlist charges in some time ago that also requires transparency from providers to advise parents where they stand on a waitlist.

Courtney Dickson, in a further article for CBC News on April 2, 2024, reports the province say some providers were charging non-refundable fees between $25 and $200 to hold a spot on their waitlists. The article continues, “Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a $69.9 million investment in child-care spaces in B.C. during a visit to Surrey. The province said 930 new $10-a-day spaces will be added this spring, bringing the total to about 15,000. The provincial government says it aims to have 20,000 spaces in the next two years.”

The Vancouver Sun, in an article by Cheryl Chan on April 2, 2024, interviewed a Vancouver parent, Amy Lee, who said she had spent over $650 “out of desperation” to put her son on lists. Many daycares didn’t charge to be on a waiting list, she said, but some did. Whilst she expressed understanding that there are costs to the centres for maintaining and managing waitlists, she had hoped there would be transparency so parents would know where they stand on the list. “Don’t charge me if you know there’s no realistic chance I’m going to get in,” she said.

The article notes “the wait-list fee ban applies to the approximately 95 per cent of daycares in B.C. that receive provincial support…. It does not apply to facilities that are entirely private….The province says that about five per cent of providers, mostly in major cities, were charging families a waiting list fee, usually non-refundable.”