CBC News reported on July 24, 2026 that home daycare providers across Canada are struggling to stay in business. Some are seeing empty spots they cannot fill. Others are shutting down entirely. The trend is not new, but the CWELCC program has accelerated it. As home-based childcare continues to shrink as a share of available supply, Ontario families searching for licensed care have one fewer option in an already stressed system.
A Decade of Decline, Now Accelerating
Home-based care made up 15 percent of all daycare spaces in Canada in 2010. By 2025, that share had fallen to approximately 8 percent, according to data from the Childcare Resource and Research Unit of Canada. That decline unfolded over more than a decade, as parents increasingly gravitated toward the programming, resources, and stability that centre-based care offers.
The CWELCC program has added a new layer of pressure on top of that long-term shift. Providers who enrol accept government-set rates that, in some cases, are lower than what they were charging years earlier. Providers who stay out of CWELCC face a different problem: families register and pay deposits, then withdraw once a subsidized centre space opens up. Nicole Maloney, an Ottawa home daycare operator who is closing after August, described the resulting financial insecurity as “insane.” She recalled an era when parents competed for her spots, telling her, “Choose my family and I’ll pay you more per day.” That era is over. Linda Herbert Gilmet, a licensed provider in Calgary with 34 years of experience, spent more than $1,000 advertising her daycare in 2026 and still has two of her six spots sitting empty. As she put it, “These are also the years that I’m madly saving for my retirement. How can you do that?”
When a Home Daycare Closes, There Is No Backup
The fragility of home-based care differs from centre-based care in one critical way. Susan Prentice, a University of Manitoba professor who studies child care, put it plainly: “Even [if] two of three staff leave a centre, the centre continues to operate. If a family home provider stops providing child care, then boom, you have no care.”
For families who depend on home daycares, especially those who chose them for extended hours, multilingual care, or smaller group sizes, a sudden closure is not an inconvenience. It is an immediate crisis. Gordon Cleveland, an associate professor of economics at the University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus, noted that home providers often serve needs that centre-based care does not, including different languages and non-standard hours. When those providers close, the families they served do not automatically find equivalent alternatives. Herbert Gilmet described what her home offers simply: “It’s a small, nurturing environment.” The families who chose her for that reason are now competing for spots in a centre-based system that was already oversubscribed before the home daycare sector began shrinking.
What This Means for Ontario Families
Ontario’s licensed childcare system is already under significant pressure. The Auditor General of Ontario found that approximately 21,235 families with approved fee subsidy entitlements remain unplaced. The Auditor General also found that approximately 27 percent of licensed spaces sit vacant on any given day, a vacancy driven by short-term fluctuations rather than long-term undersupply. As home-based providers exit the sector, more families are competing for the same centre-based spots, adding pressure to a system already strained.
The families most affected by home daycare closures are often those with the fewest alternatives: parents who need extended hours, families who relied on a specific language or cultural fit, and parents who chose home care specifically because it felt more stable than a larger centre. When that provider closes, they are starting from zero in a system that was not designed to accommodate urgent, last-minute searches.
Finding Available Care When You Need It Now
ChildSpot was built for exactly the situation that home daycare closures create. When a home provider closes with weeks or days of notice, parents need to see what is actually available at licensed centres near them right now, not what appeared on a directory months ago.
ChildSpot shows real-time availability at licensed Ontario childcare centres. Operators post openings directly on ChildSpot as spots become available from schedule changes, vacancies, and program transitions. Parents search by date, location, and age group and see only centres with actual openings. CWELCC-enrolled centres offering the $22 a day maximum rate are clearly labelled. Every listing holds an active licence with the Ontario Ministry of Education. When a parent finds a spot that works, they book and pay securely through the app in minutes.
Susan Prentice described the future of home child care in Canada as “a bit of an open question right now.” For Ontario families who relied on home-based care and are now searching for alternatives, the question is more immediate: what is available today. ChildSpot is built to answer that question.
Search available spots at licensed Ontario childcare centres at app.childspotapp.com, or download the ChildSpot app on iOS. Free to search. Book in minutes.
Source: Tustonic, Maia. (July 24, 2026). “Are home daycares being squeezed out of business?” CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/child-care-dayhomes-closing-9.7264148
Additional reference: Auditor General of Ontario. (October 2025). Special Report: Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Program. Office of the Auditor General of Ontario.