New federal rules excluding many Early Childhood Education graduates from work permits spark concerns amid ongoing workforce crisis.
Ontario is raising alarms over new federal immigration changes that could severely impact child-care staffing and jeopardize the province’s expansion of Ottawa’s $10-a-day child-care program. Recent changes to postgraduate work permits now restrict eligibility to areas with recognized labour shortages, effectively excluding many Early Childhood Education (ECE) graduates from applying.
The Ontario government, alongside colleges and child-care advocates, fears that this policy shift will worsen the shortage of early childhood educators, hindering child-care facilities’ ability to operate at full capacity and expand as planned. According to Colleges Ontario, public colleges currently have 5,300 international students enrolled in ECE programs, making up nearly 50% of all students in this field.
“This federal policy change will make it even more difficult for Ontarians to find affordable child care, and no doubt impacts will be felt immediately,” warned Marketa Evans, President and CEO of Colleges Ontario.
The absence of general ECE programs in the federal list has generated confusion and criticism, particularly as Ontario expects a shortage of 8,500 early childhood educators by 2026, as revealed by internal documents. The only ECE-related category eligible for post-graduation work permits listed on the federal government’s site is “education/teaching of individuals in early childhood special education programs.”
Alana Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Early Childhood Educators of Ontario, expressed concerns about the sector’s ability to retain and recruit enough educators. “Ongoing retention and recruitment of early childhood educators in Ontario continues to be a concern, and it’s a concern for current operational levels, let alone planned expansion under the $10-a-day system,” Powell explained. “So to see any sort of barrier in place for bringing more early childhood educators into the workforce is a big problem at a time like this.”
When asked for clarification, Immigration Minister Marc Miller’s office initially assured that ECE programs would be covered, attributing the confusion to unclear wording on the government’s website. However, with the new rules set to take effect on Friday, early childhood education—outside of special education—remains absent from the government’s updated list of eligible study areas.
Ontario’s Minister of Colleges and Universities, Nolan Quinn, wrote to Miller, urging the federal government to include ECE programs and other critical areas of shortage such as hospitality, health-care administration, and automotive technologies. While the federal list was recently updated to include registered nursing, the lack of transparency and ongoing omissions are leaving colleges scrambling to understand the implications.
Colleges Ontario is calling for a pause on the changes to allow more time for clarification and adjustments. “Our ask is that it be paused because of all of this confusion,” Evans emphasized. “We don’t know if these are errors or intentional omissions, and again, there hasn’t been much time to digest.”
The changes come amid the federal government’s broader push to reduce international student visas, with Minister Miller citing concerns over housing pressures and constricted labour markets in specific areas. As part of this strategy, Canada has already implemented a temporary cap on new student visas this year.
In addition to the child-care sector, Colleges Ontario has highlighted other omissions they believe are critical, such as engineering technician and technology programs essential to the electric-vehicle industry, and dental hygiene, key to the federal dental-care initiative.
The federal government’s next steps, and its willingness to update the eligibility list further, remain crucial to averting potential crises in Ontario’s child-care and other key sectors.