Rural Manitoba families will have better access to childcare with the opening of the first of eight ready-to-move centres, the provincial and federal governments announced Friday.
Manitoba premier Heather Stefanson said the opening of the Bright Beginnings Educare facility in Headingley — which will provide 20 infant and 54 preschool spaces — is a “game-changer” when it comes to meeting child-care needs.
“The ready-to-move child-care project is an innovative and cost-effective approach to create more child care spaces sooner,” Stefanson said.
The opening is part of a joint $94 million ready-to-move project between the two levels of government, and will be followed by followed by the opening of similar facilities in Oak Bluff, Whitemouth, Stonewall, East Selkirk, Ile des Chênes, Rosenort and Portage la Prairie by October.
The project’s second phase will be the creation of facilities in Dauphin, Morden, Melita, and Morris, as well as the RMs of Hanover, Tache, Macdonald, Rockwood, Sifton, Ritchot, Argyle, and Brokenhead. Norway House and Lake St. Martin First Nations will also receive centres.
“We know that in rural communities, families are struggling to access early learning and child care programming and services,” said MP Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North).
“That is why Canada is working with our provincial, territorial and Indigenous partners to fund innovative solutions, like Manitoba’s ready-to-move program, that will offer families access to high-quality, culturally appropriate, flexible and inclusive early learning and child care, no matter where they live.”
However, President of the Manitoba Childcare Association Lynda Raible says the province is short 1,000 early childhood educators, and many childcare centres already have trouble retaining staff.
The province has made some investments in training such as the $3.5 million announced on Thursday for ECE education and up to $5,000 in tuition reimbursements for students. While Raible acknowledges the childcare system revamp is a massive undertaking she says at this point staffing can’t keep up.
“We know we would need 460-500 early childhood educators to fill those spaces, so that is a task in itself.”
She says the wage grid the province has set to ECEs is too low to attract staff. “In order to be able to bring those ECEs into the market, we need to have a competitive, research-based salary scale, so that we are providing the compensation, remuneration, pension, and working conditions for those ECEs to not only come into our field but stay in that field.”
And Michelle Blanchard, director at the Victor Play Centre says the industry has been plagued by staffing issues for as long as she can remember. “In all the centres I have worked at, whether as director, or just staff, it’s been a constant concern,”
Blanchard agrees wage is the main issue when it comes to attracting and retaining staff and she thinks staff need to be paid what they deserve as it can be quite a demanding job.
“These staff deserve way more than we can ever pay them for what they have to do, the amount of stuff they will have to do in the future.”
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