Ottawa ponies up $47M to add 1,400 daycare spots for Manitoba children

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This article was published 22/02/2018 (2247 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ottawa will contribute $47 million over the next three years to create 1,400 daycare spaces in Manitoba.

“Many parents struggle with high and rising prices, and that’s even if they can find daycare spaces,” Winnipeg Liberal MP Dan Vandal told a news conference Friday in Winnipeg.

Manitoba Families Minister Scott Fielding told reporters he soon will announce which centres in which communities will get the spaces — a combination of newly planned and long-awaited daycare slots. Some of them will accommodate disabled children, and there will be an announcement for spaces for autistic children, the minister said.

As of Jan. 31, provincial officials said, there were 16,032 children registered on the online waiting list, including prospective parents trying to line up spaces ahead of time. “It’s going to take some time to narrow that down,” Fielding acknowledged.

“This is a historic day — we’ve been waiting a long time,” retiring Manitoba Child Care Association executive director Pat Wege said Friday.

Nevertheless, while the plan would provide a good foundation, she said, “It’s not going to solve Manitoba’s child-care problem… It’s some brand-new (spaces) and some (existing centres) struggling to operate.”

Stealing some thunder from Fielding, Wege said the minister plans to announce a Manitoba action plan on child care in the next few weeks.

“What it means for Manitoba depends very much on what they announce in the coming weeks in the Manitoba action plan,” she said. “We haven’t seen a lot of new spaces in the last couple of years, so it’s anyone’s guess.”

Wege said the federal money may help some of Manitoba’s existing daycare centres, with 1,900 spaces that are underfunded and having trouble staying open. “They’ll be elated — we’re talking about operating funding revenue.”

Friday’s announcement, however, did not address low wages in the child-care sector, Wege said. “It’s been a long-term problem. That is yet to come.”

Fielding said the province is spending $175 million a year on child care, which the federal funding will augment.

Some of the money will pay for online training, some will improve accessibility in centres, the minister said. There will be incentives to open home-based child care, and money will go to 15 child-care centres in northern Manitoba “to add stability to their operations.”

Vandal noted the money comes from the federal Liberals’ previous promise of $7.5 billion in child-care funding over the next 11 years.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca