Slate welcomes new child-care spaces

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This article was published 20/02/2025 (378 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Creating new child-care spaces for parents who work at Brandon Regional Health Centre (BRHC) is good news, said Prairie Mountain Health (PMH) CEO Treena Slate, reacting to a federal and provincial promise to bring 140 new spaces to the Wheat City.

“Plans to construct a daycare centre on Prairie Mountain Health property on the Brandon Regional Health Centre campus are in the very early stages,” said Slate.

“We are very excited about the new child-care spaces and the potential health-care recruitment and retention benefits that will be afforded to the region as a result,” she told the Sun.

The federal and provincial governments announced plans for 324 new child-care spaces for children up to age six, for BRHC and two Winnipeg health-care facilities — St. Boniface Hospital and Riverview Health Centre — in Winnipeg on Tuesday.

Federal Families, Children and Social Development Minister Jenna Sudds was in Winnipeg for the funding announcement, along with Manitoba Education and Early Childhood Learning Minister Tracy Schmidt.

Under the Early Learning and Child Care Infrastructure Fund, the two governments signed an action plan detailing how Manitoba will invest $20.9 million in federal funding over three years to “create the child-care spaces in health-care facilities across the province,” the news release about the announcement stated.

Health-care workers have been calling for on-site child care and is something that Manitoba Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said they “consistently” heard from front-line workers during a listening tour of health-care facilities in 2024.

“Child care at their workplace, close to the workplace, would make a huge difference for some folks who have children, to return to work much more quickly. And for health-care workers who don’t often work that Monday to Friday nine to five, they need child care that is flexible,” Asagwara told the Sun.

“We know that this is something that will support a better work life balance and is a great way for us to retain front-line staff, and it’s a great way for us to recruit health-care workers,” they said.

The expansion is welcome news to Jodie Kehl, the executive director of Manitoba Child Care Association (MCCA), a professional association that advocates for a high quality child-care system in the province.

“Great news for families and good to see that we’re moving in the right direction,” said Kehl, adding, “and it’s great to see symbiotic relationship between health care and child care. That shows me we’re getting the gears all moving in the right direction.

“But we still have to do more for the workforce,” Kehl said, adding, too much too soon might create more spaces than there are staff.

There is a shortage of child-care facilities in Manitoba, with a licensed child space for just one in five children aged 0-12 years, as reported by the Sun.

In the Wheat City, there are about 6,700 children under the age of nine who are vying for one of just 1,000 child-care spaces.

The Brandon YMCA operates six child-care learning centres, but has closed all of its waiting lists because of overwhelming demand.

In September 2024, the Sun reported on PMH’s plans to build a new daycare centre that could accommodate 125 to 150 child-care spaces, situated a block away from BRHC.

The new centre, to be called Brandon Day Care, is intended to provide daycare to PMH employees and the general public.

When operating a child-care facility, there is provisional legislation, said Kehl. In preschool spaces, two-thirds of the staff must be early childhood educators with a minimum of two years of post-secondary education.

Centres must be staffed with high-quality certified educators who are compensated well, she said.

“The current wage grid that the province released last July (2024) has a starting ECE salary of $21.30 an hour. MCCA has a market competitive salary guideline scale that we’ve been producing since the year 2000, and our target for an EC 2 or EC 3 is $28.63, so we still have some gaps,” said Kehl.

There has been no date provided by either the province or the federal government as to when the funding will be transferred to the health regions for construction of the child-care facilities.

Kehl said she’ll be watching for it, but is focusing her attention on the upcoming provincial budget.

“I’m writing MCCA’s recommendations to the province for the budget and acknowledging that we have to focus on the workforce more than ever,” Kehl said.

“We’re still short in our current system, we’re still not paying ECEs the competitive salaries that they deserve, and without this part of the puzzle piece, we’re not going to make the right progress.”

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com

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