Better late than never on child-care promise

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/02/2025 (289 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

With a federal election looming on the horizon, Canada’s Liberal government is finally moving to fulfil its promise to improve the quality and availability of child care throughout Manitoba.

On Tuesday, the federal and Manitoba governments announced plans to create more than 700 new child-care spaces for children up to age six at health-care facilities, schools and post-secondary institutions throughout the province.

The two governments have signed an agreement under the Early Learning and Child Care Infrastructure Fund, under which Manitoba will invest almost $21 million in federal funding over three years to support the creation of approximately 324 child-care spaces in health-care facilities across the province.

Those new spaces will be allocated between the Brandon Regional Health Centre and two health-care facilities in Winnipeg — St. Boniface Hospital and the Riverview Health Centre. A memo sent to all St. Boniface Hospital staff on Tuesday advised that the majority of the new spaces would be reserved for hospital staff and physicians, meaning that the same approach will likely be taken here in Brandon.

The new daycare centres will also be open for extended hours in order to accommodate the needs of parents who may be performing shift work. That will make it easier for health-care staff to access reliable child-care during the hours they are working.

Through the Canada-Manitoba Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement, an additional 256 new child-care spaces will be located in six schools throughout the province. That’s on top of the 36 new school-based facilities, building additions and renovations that had been previously announced, for a total of more than 2,600 new infant and preschool spaces in partnership with 19 school divisions.

The two governments are also funding 128 new child-care spaces at Red River College Polytechnic and University College of the North’s Thompson campus. Those spaces are in addition to new spaces previously announced at nine other post-secondary campuses across the province, for a combined total of more than 800 new spaces at Manitoba post-secondary institutions and a total investment of more than $60 million.

To date, the federal government has helped to fund more than 4,300 child-care spaces for children ages zero to six, easing a chronic shortage of spaces throughout the province. That’s a huge number.

In addition to the announcement of new child-care spaces, the two governments also re-affirmed their support for a tuition reimbursement program that will provide early childhood education students with up to $5,000. The Urban Circle Training Centre in Winnipeg is also receiving funding to support programming to train 30 Indigenous students to work in the child-care profession.

Beyond the fact that this week’s announcements will result in the addition of hundreds of desperately needed child-care spaces throughout the province and increase the supply of early childhood education workers, they also address four other pressing issues.

First, they will help in the recruitment and retention of health-care professionals by making the new spaces available at the places where those people are working, during the hours they are working. No longer will those staff be forced to travel to another location to drop off or pick up their children, nor will they have to adjust their work schedules to match the hours of their children’s child-care provider.

Second, the same logic applies with respect to the teacher shortage that is impacting a number of schools throughout the province. Having child-care available within the school where the teacher is working makes it easier for a teacher with young children to return to work.

Third, having child-care available at schools also makes life easier for parents with both school-aged children and those who are still too young for school. It means just one stop for child care and school, and that makes it easier for parents to either return to or stay in the workplace.

Finally, creating child-care spaces at post-secondary institutions will improve access to higher education for more Manitobans, which will in turn create more employment opportunities for those parents, leading to greater economic success and stability.

All of this is good for Manitobans and for the provincial economy, but it causes us to wonder why so many parents throughout the province have had to wait so long for these announcements to finally be made. The need for additional spaces has been there for years, and the solutions outlined in this week’s announcements are so sensible that they should have been obvious to governments long ago.

The phrase “better late than never” comes to mind, but it should never have required the spectre of a tough election campaign to finally make these new child-care spaces a reality.