I read this yesterday too and my initial reaction was like yours. As you know, once one province makes changes, it's not long before it ripples through.

Then I thought more about it.

There is a demand for unregulated/unregistered homes in most provinces. We know that because we exist. Most provinces have a higher number of unregulated/unregistered/private day homes than licensed/approved/whatever your provincial equivalent is.

Much like Quebec, who has a set rate for child care, and who are flagged as being the ideal in terms of parental costs, there remains the demand for private day homes too. Simply, there are always more children than regulated spaces because if that was false, then there wouldn't be the requirement for the private day homes.

Nova Scotia (or maybe it was New Brunswick) had a big change last year with pre-primary being offered without charge to every child age 4 with a roll out of that over a few years and I believe that hasn't had the impact yet that the provider's were worried about.

I think this is going to be one of the situations where we have to wait and see.