Manitoba Métis daycare funding ‘going to change thousands of lives’

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This article was published 17/09/2018 (2047 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

New federal funding for child care will mean the world to the average Métis family, according to Manitoba Metis Federation president David Chartrand.

The MMF president welcomed a federal announcement Monday that three Indigenous organizations are to benefit from a $1.7-billion agreement over the next decade to fund Métis, First Nations and Inuit child-care initiatives.

He expects it will be a gamechanger for Manitoba Métis, and provide the foundation for a new generation of working mothers.

“This program for child care is the biggest in our history,” Chartrand said. “It’s going to change thousands of lives. We have a very young population, and one of the fastest growing populations in Western Canada.”

Young Métis mothers had previously identified lack of daycare and preschool services as major hurdles that have kept them out of the workforce and out of higher education and job training programs, he said.

The MMF will receive more than $112 million of the $450 million Ottawa has set aside for Métis people across the country. It’s the first funding the Manitoba Métis have received that is dedicated to create their own culturally keyed child-care programs.

The agreement is as part of bigger pot of funds, some $7 billion the federal Liberals set aside for preschool learning and child-care initiatives, most of which will go to the provinces and territories over the 10-year funding period.

“We’ve never had programs like this before,” Chartrand said in a phone interview Tuesday. “For the Métis Nation, this is a first. Our mothers have been asking now for decades for this opportunity.”

Manitoba’s 120,000 Métis don’t share in provincial funds for child care, nor the preschool services (Head Start programs) which have been funded for a decade or more on First Nations and in Inuit communities.

The 2017 federal budget promised a sum of money for Indigenous child care. The framework agreement announced this week is based on extensive consultation with Indigenous leaders over the last year.

The talks focused on the need for culturally appropriate services that are accessible no matter where families live. Both are factors in keeping with recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

In Manitoba, 100 new jobs will be created for Métis workers in the next year or so thanks to the funding, Chartrand said.

After that, the first graduates of yet-to-be set up training and educational programs will start graduating, possibly by 2020. They will have jobs waiting for them in new daycares and service programs the MMF plans to roll out over to meet the demand from working families and to lay a solid foundation to prepare children for school, the MMF president said.

“We’ll be building our own (daycare facilities). It’s going to be a massive undertaking,” Chartrand said.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca