Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson made an announcement Thursday morning about an expansion to early-learning child care in the province.
The two leaders were joined by Karina Gould, federal minister of families, children and social development; northern affairs minister Dan Vandal; and Manitoba’s education and early childhood learning minister Wayne Ewasko.
The province said it’s expanding eligibility to its Child Care Subsidy Program as of Sunday, which is expected to triple the number of regulated spaces being subsidized.
“Our government is committed to working with the federal government and early childhood educators to build a community-based system of quality, affordable and inclusive early learning and child care programs and services for Manitoba families,” said Stefanson.
“Today we are taking an important step in achieving our collective goal. Improving access to affordable child care will support more Manitobans, especially women, to upgrade their training, participate in our economy and play a key role in our pandemic recovery.”
The program reduces fees for eligible children between 12 weeks and 12 years of age, and will provide support for an estimated 12,000 additional children — on top of the existing 6,000 who receive at least a partial subsidy — particularly from low-income families.
Get weekly health news
The net household income thresholds for the subsidy program are increasing by 45 per cent, to an average net household income of $23,883 to $37,116 for a full subsidy and $37,542 to $82,877 for a partial subsidy.
The program is intended to help Manitoba reach its goal of $10 a day child care by 2023.
Manitoba’s child care is one of the most affordable in Canada. But Don Giesbrecht with the Canadian Child Care Federation says we can look to Quebec, which has long subsidized child care, to see its benefits on society.
He says the program is very popular there and is one that encourages women to join the workforce.
“One of the important things to remember is when we talk about child care, we cannot just talk about the economy because this is about children too, right?” Giesbrecht said. “This is about their well-being.”
He says achieving high-quality child care will mean supporting staff.
Manitoba Child Care Association Executive Director Jodie Kehl agrees and says the workforce is in crisis, partly due to high staff turnover and staff shortages that have been exacerbated during the pandemic.
She says affordability is the first step, but a workforce strategy has to be next.
“The centrepiece of the plan has to encompass that workforce,” Kehl said. “Otherwise, we’re not going to be building a transformative system that will actually sustain child care for years to come in our province.”
Manitoba currently has around 38,000 regulated child care spaces and wants to add 23,000 more by 2026.
Kehl says it’s an ambitious target and one the province needs to tackle right away. To do so, she says they’ll need to hire more than 5,000 workers to accomodate that expansion.
Comments