“We Feel Invisible”: Early Childhood Educators and the Policy Contradictions of Ontario’s CWELCC Approach

Despite historic federal investment in a publicly funded childcare system through the 2021 Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) program, Ontario’s childcare sector remains characterized by long waitlists, space shortages, and a shrinking Early Childhood Educator (ECE) workforce. This article critically examines Ontario’s implementation of CWELCC, particularly the province’s prioritization of fee reductions for parents over improvements to ECE wages and working conditions. Drawing on a social reproduction framework and qualitative interview data with ECEs and childcare advocates, I argue that Ontario’s “fees first” approach reproduces the historical devaluation of feminized care labor by sidelining the workforce upon which its policy reform relies. The province’s approach exposes the limitations of social policy reforms that remain tethered to neoliberal capitalist logics that fail to address the structural undervaluation of care labor. The result is a care infrastructure built on an increasingly unstable and disillusioned workforce.