I agree that it's a challenge.
In Quebec, the labour shortage is also an issue in early childhood education. We saw action taken to address the problem during the pandemic. Sadly, the hiring criteria were loosened and people began hiring staff who were not fully trained. Improving working conditions for educators and catching up on wages would certainly help make this profession more attractive—it has enormous value for human life—and alleviate the labour shortage.
To come back to your comment about for-profit day care versus not-for-profit CPEs, studies do show that in not-for-profit settings, 83% of educators are qualified on average, while only 45%, nearly half as many, are qualified in unsubsidized, for-profit day care settings. Therefore, non-profit settings appear to protect staff quality to some extent.