Waterloo Regional Council approved the lowering of fees by 25 per cent for licenced home daycares as part of the federal government’s Canada Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) program.
The reduced rates will kick in on Sept. 1 and will be retroactive to April 1.
The move is the first in an expected series of decreases which are supposed to bring child-care costs for parents down to $10 a day by 2025.
The feds first introduced the CWELCC program back in July of 2021 but the provincial government did not sign on to the plan until March of 2022, becoming the last province to do so.
The deal was expected to bring a 25 per cent reduction in daycare costs across the province on May 1 but parents have been left waiting for results.
An announcement from the region about the lowering of the fees for home daycares did not include any information about the status of other daycares.