The Nova Scotia government is putting forward $4.4 million to improve access to child care across the province.
Education Minister Zach Churchill said the money will in part be used to create 403 new spaces.
READ MORE: Nova Scotia says $8.9 million will create 1,000 new regulated child-care spaces
“Funding is also going to space conversion grants, so centres that want to take on infants and need to change the makeup of their centre or put a new room or bring in new materials in,” he said.
The money is welcome news to the St. Joseph’s Children Centre, a non-profit child-care centre with four locations across the Halifax Regional Municipality.
Leah Rigby, who chairs the board, called the investment significant. The centre is getting $67,000 to be split among their four locations, which they intend to use for various upgrades such as new paint and counter tops.
“We don’t have the funds to be put towards those types of fixer uppers. Our money goes towards quality child care for the children,” she said.
While the money will be put to good use, concerns remain in the child-care industry about recruitment and retention of early child-care educators.
“That’s a continuous project, that we’re trying to always retain and recruit,” said Rigby.
Nan McFadgen is the president of CUPE Nova Scotia, which represents over 100 early child-care workers in the province. She says there remains a discrepancy in wages between those who work for pre-primary programs at schools and those who work in child-care centres.
“We would absolutely love it if we could see some movement to have every early childhood educator making the same wage, and having the same benefits under the department of education.” she said.
While those who work in the newly introduced pre-primary programs have a pension, McFadgen says that’s not the case for most workers in child care.
“Most of the early childhood educators (ECE) that work in the childcare sector will retire in poverty,” she said.
Earlier this year a report released by the Centre for Policy Alternatives found that early childhood educators feel unappreciated and underpaid, and that forty per cent of ECEs said they wouldn’t choose their profession again if they could start over.
READ MORE: Study finds Nova Scotia’s early childhood educators feel ‘unappreciated and underpaid’
Churchill brushed off concerns about wage disparity, pointing to wage increases brought forward by then Education Minister Karen Casey in 2016.
“We went from around $14 an hour to on average we’re about 18, so there’s been a lot of investment in wage,” Churchill said.
According to CUPE, wages for ECEs working in child-care centres range from around $27,000 to $38,000 annually, while ECEs working in pre-primary classrooms range from $44,000 to $46,000.
McFadgen says with higher wages and better benefits being offered in the school sector, it will continue to be difficult to recruit ECEs to the child-care centres.
“The group needs the same wage, the same benefits,” she said.