NDP pledges $35.5M boost for daycares if elected on April 19

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This article was published 10/03/2016 (3822 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Following Tuesday’s fiscal update, a NDP spokesperson confirmed the party will spend an additional $35.5 million on building daycares and child-care operating costs in Manitoba if re-elected.

Broken down, $10.5 million will go toward paying for child-care worker salaries and other operating costs, while $25 million will be alloted to building new centres.

There are currently 12,729 children across the province waiting for a spot at a licenced daycare, according to the final report from the government’s child care commission released in January.

There are 803 kids in Westman on the wait list.

“(It’s) a significant number for the region,” Manitoba Child Care Association executive director Pat Wege said. “There’s a shortage of child care in most locations in Manitoba, there are pockets where there might be a surplus of spaces … but overall it’s easy to see that Manitoba has a lot of work to do to fill the gap between supply and demand.”

Of those on the Westman waiting list, 63 spots are held for children not yet born.

“Those are the smart parents, because they know what the wait times are like for child-care space,” said Wege. “It’s no guarantee, either, because lots of kids age out before they get ever into the system.”

The NDP government has a longstanding goal to create 12,000 more daycare spaces in Manitoba by 2020.

“There is a great deal of pressure on child care in this province primarily because of the growing economy and more people participating in the labour force,” Brandon East NDP MLA Drew Caldwell said. “We are responding to a growing need.”

Caldwell says his party is prepared to “go it alone” when it comes to paying for the $35.5-million plan, but is expecting the feds will get involved.

“With the new federal government, we’re optimistic that we are going to work towards the creating of a national child care strategy again,” he said.

Brandon East Liberal candidate Vanessa Hamilton believes the NDP promise is too little, too late.

“They’ve had 17 years to address the issue and just at the last hour before election, they’re making promises just to get votes,” she said.

Hamilton says the NDP’s goal of 12,000 new spaces is unattainable and that the main issue in Brandon is child care workers not getting paid enough.

“Workers aren’t getting paid accordingly and it’s very hard to keep workers,” she said.

Brandon West Progressive Conservative incumbent Reg Helwer is critical of the spending promise, which he calls a repeat of committents made in the 2015 throne speech.

“What we’ve seen is that they’ve failed on their delivery of child-care spaces in the past and they’ve driven it up to 12,000 on the waiting list,” he said. “They’ve put resources in places but they don’t always follow through in making sure those resources are used.”

Helwer believes child care is an issue that could deter people from moving to the Wheat City.

“People who are moving to Brandon from outside of the city and they’re looking for child care, so they can go to work and not finding any,” he said, adding that PC Leader Brian Pallister will be making specific child-care announcements heading into the campaign period.

“Naysayers and nitpickers don’t get results,” Caldwell said in response to the criticism.

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