Voting Early Learning & Child Care in Municipal Elections

Municipalities play an important role in early learning and child care (ELCC), holding a variety of roles in ELCC delivery, funding, and resourcing. Electing Early Learning & Child Care Champions at the municipal level makes a difference.
Developed by the AECEO and the OCBCC in October 2026, this resource provides an overview of the traditional municipal roles in ELCC and a series of questions that educators, child care workers, families, and community members can ask their city council and mayoral candidates to learn if they are ELCC champions. 

AECEO Annual Report 2025-2026

AECEO annual report for 2025-2026.

Nourishing Care: Conceptualizing School Food within a Multi-Level Framework – eceLINK Summer 2026

Abstract:
In 2024, Canada’s federal government committed $1 billion toward a national school food program to increase food access for children and youth. The current provincial policies focus on nutrition standards while neglecting feeding relationships, which raises questions about their effectiveness. This policy analysis examines how Ontario school food frameworks could include care-based feeding using a School Food Care framework that is adapted from Black and Byun’s (2025) multi-level theory of food care and Satter’s (2007) Division of Responsibility. Analysis reveals that current policies privilege measurable nutrition outcomes and efficiency over care relationships, creating structural conditions that leave open space for practices that undermine children’s food autonomy and reproduce existing power imbalances. While this interpretation requires further empirical validation, this paper offers policy recommendations that include revising procedures to specify responsive feeding practices as pedagogical care work.

Keywords:
care work, feminized labour, full-day kindergarten, Ontario, responsive feeding, school food policy

Navigating the Hurdles of the CWELCC System: Centering Ontario Early Childhood Education and Care Operators’ Perspectives – eceLINK Summer 2026

Abstract:
This paper investigates how early childhood education and care operators in Ontario navigated the early implementation (2021-2023) of the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) system. Drawing data from a mixed-methods survey and a political economy of care framework, the findings reveal widespread concern about the sustainability of the funding system, lack of workforce support, and implementation gaps. While affordability goals have largely been met for families, operators reported increased financial strains, staffing shortages, and unclear policy directives. The paper highlights a growing disconnect between federal policy goals and provincial execution, emphasizing the need for frontline-informed childcare reform.

Keywords:
Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC); Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC); Funding; Implementation Gaps; Operators; Ontario

Program Profile: Early Years at Tungasuvvingat Inuit – eceLINK Summer 2026

This article, Early Years at Tungasuvvingat Inuit, marks the first in a series of program profiles developed by members of the AECEO Guiding Committee on Truth and Reconciliation. Committee members collaborated to create guiding questions and to identify Indigenous early learning and child care programs whose work should be highlighted. In future issues of eceLINK, readers will be introduced to a range of programs across the province, including Métis, urban First Nation programs, and rural First Nation programs.

The AECEO Guiding Committee on Truth and Reconciliation contributes an article in each issue of our publication, the eceLINK.

Please note that the Truth and Reconciliation Guiding Committee submissions and articles are not related to our eceLINK peer reviewed section – submissions are not peer reviewed/evaluated. Submissions will be very lightly edited prior to publication.

Migrant Rights and Early Childhood Education – Resource Document

This resource document was written by the AECEO and the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change as a support document for early childhood educators and child care workers to learn more about the impact of immigration policy and the importance of migrant workers in the early childhood education sector.

The Migrant Workers’ Alliance for Change (MWAC) is building a member-led organization of migrant workers, students, refugees, and families to win worker and immigration justice. We advocate for permanent resident status for all. The Alliance is a member of and serves as the secretariat for the Migrant Rights Network and Migrant Rights Network – Ontario.

Want to Learn More? Want to Get Involved?

• Get connected with the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change
  • Website
  • Instagram
• Listen to Circle Time with the AECEO episode 22 with special guest Sarom Rho from the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change
  • Listen on Spotify
  • Listen on YouTube

Guiding principles for professional learning

The following criteria were developed by the AECEO in consultation with sector stakeholders to help ECE professionals identify professional learning opportunities of the highest quality. As well, the guiding principles support ECEs to successfully meet the Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice established by the College of ECEs through their continuous professional learning.

• Supports active participation
• Critically identifies, evaluates and challenges thinking about daily practice
• Poses questions about values and beliefs regarding why we do what we do and what we want for children, families, communities and society
• Introduces new and relevant ideas and topics
• Creates and supports a critically reflective community of practice that reciprocally interacts with the changing needs of children, families and society
• Promotes a sense of professionalism
• Easily accessible and affordable
• Delivered using a broad range of informal and formal strategies or activities
• Delivered using a range of formats for different topics including face-to-face, hybrid (combination of face-to-face and on-line), and on-line
• Promotes collaboration between all professionals who work in different early childhood education and care settings (i.e. child care, full day kindergarten, family support programs)
• Engages participants in reflection regarding their daily practice
• Provides diversity to be inclusive of all areas of RECE employment
• Supports participant choice with respect to timing, topic and mode of delivery

AECEO 2023 Provincial Conference Committee

We are extremely grateful to our incredible conference committee for working with us to plan a conference for Early Childhood Educators by Early Childhood Educators. Please take a moment to read the short biographies attached to learn more about each of the members of the conference committee who will be working together behind the scenes to make this conference happen.