There was fallout Monday night from the decision by a Regina early care centre to close its doors, a move that parents fear could happen anywhere in Saskatchewan.
Eden Care’s Saplings Early Learning Child Care Centre told parents that its facility will close at the end of June.
With only seven weeks’ notice of the closure, parents were left feeling defeated.
“We were mad (because) in the climate nowadays, trying to find a space, let alone two spaces,” said Patrick Denis, a father of two kids who attend the child care centre. “The quickest I could find was six months and the longest was three-to-five years.”
Parents with children at Saplings wrote a detailed letter to the Eden Care Board of Directors explaining how this closure has negatively affected the families.
According to the letter, some parents are now considering quitting their jobs because it’s nearly impossible to get accepted into a new child-care facility within seven weeks.
“Hold these facilities accountable,” Denis said. “Like who’s to stop another daycare from just shutting down because they’re not making a profit off of it?”
The letter also calls on the Saskatchewan government and Ministry of Education to implement a minimum notice period for closures, revisal of the inclusion grant for children, and to create a comprehensive child-care system in the province.
Denis said he and the other parents know there’s nothing they can do to stop the facility from being shut down. He and his wife lucked out and got two spots at a different licensed facility but he knows there are still other parents out there that are struggling and stuck on long waitlists.
“In today’s climate with the way everyone’s looking for cheap child care, either you get no child care or you’re paying double or triple for a private care home.”
Global News reached out to Eden Care and the Ministry of Education for comment but neither organization responded before deadline.