A Manitoba NDP government would expand the $10-a-day child care program to summer and statutory holidays, leader Wab Kinew promised Sunday.
Right now, child care costs for school-aged children in summer months, on professional development days and holidays can be $18 to over $20 per day, a figure Kinew said needs to change.
“Parents need affordable, quality child care but right now it’s not working for too many families,” he said at a Sunday morning press conference. “Parents of school age kids are seeing their bills go up in the summer.”
The current program, introduced by the Manitoba PC government in April and funded by the province and feds, offers $10-a-day child care for children not yet in school, and those in school who attend a child care program and classes.
Kinew pledged to offer more for families and workers if the NDP forms government after the Oct. 3 election.
“Right now, you might see $10-a-day on a billboard, but when you show up at a child care centre and you drop your kids off during a workday in the summer, or on a (professional development) day at school, or on holiday, it’s not truly $10 a day,” Kinew said.
The New Democrat leader said the Manitoba government would eat the cost of expanding the program.
Kinew also said he would spend $10 million to incentivize child care centres to extend their hours to provide more flexibility to parents who don’t have typical working hours.
“Shift workers like nurses and construction workers don’t have options that work for them,” he said.
In 2021 the federal and provincial governments signed a five-year, $1.2-billion agreement to whittle down child care costs to $10 per day by 2026. The PCs implemented the lower fee three years ahead of schedule.
An emailed statement from Families Minister Rochelle Squires didn’t comment on Kinew’s pledge, but noted the Tory government announced thousands of new, school-aged child care spaces in recent months, getting them halfway to a goal of 23,000 new spaces by 2026.
A PC spokesperson said the Tory government has announced over 11,000 spaces to date, with 2,600 school-aged spaces already open.
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