Frustrated mom finds wait-lists, no $10-a-day child-care

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This article was published 20/04/2023 (917 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Samantha Raible was excited to hear the provincial government would be ushering in $10-per-day child care.

With her maternity leave ending soon and a nine-month-old daughter who will soon need daycare, she hoped to use the money she would save on those reduced costs to offset increases in everything else.

Then she was told by multiple facilities that their wait-lists were five years long.

“What do I do? Two of my co-workers are actually on mat leave and all three of us are competing for the same space so we can return to work. As I talk to moms in my parent-child playgroups, they’re all saying the same thing — ‘I can’t find the space,’” Raible said at the Lord Roberts Community Centre while her daughter, Hannah, played nearby.

“I think that (while) it’s extremely helpful to families to provide $10 daycare, it’s not helpful to so many families that the spaces are just not available.”

It’s a message the Manitoba Child Care Association wants to deliver loud and clear in advance of October’s provincial election.

“Regrettably, many families are now realizing affordable child care is not guaranteed,” MCCA executive director Jodie Kehl said Thursday.

Manitoba signed on to the federal Liberal government’s national child-care plan, which provides $1.2 billion to the province over five years, in 2021. The average of $10 daily cost in Manitoba was achieved earlier this month, three years ahead of schedule.

That funding is also set to create 23,000 new full-time regulated child-care spaces by March 2026, but Kehl said other gaps in the system mean that if those spaces materialize, there may not be an adequate number of people to staff them.

The field is losing those educators because of extremely low entry-level wages in the province.

“A fraction of the 23,000 new spaces projected in Manitoba’s action plan have been announced or are in the process of being created, and while accessibility and expansion are integral parts of system building, without early childhood educators, new spaces will be empty spaces,” she said.

About 35 per cent of Manitoba’s child-care programs do not meet the provincial requirements for trained staff, and there are approximately 1,000 fewer trained early childhood educators today than there were in 2018.

The starting wage for an entry-level position is $19.53 an hour, but the MCCA argues a competitive market wage should be around $26.86 an hour.

“(ECEs) are expected to have a minimum of two years of post-secondary education, but are being paid high school wages,” Kehl said, adding the association has met with opposition members of the legislature and hopes to continue sharing recommendations before the election.

Creating a funding formula for licensed family child-care homes and investing in the expansion of post-secondary ECE programs are two of them, she said.

In the meantime, Raible will rely on a family member to help her, but she, like many Manitobans, would prefer to use the provincial supports that are supposed to be available to her.

“I won’t have a space for my daughter unless we have more spaces and more ECEs to work those spaces. My family deserves quality licensed child care,” she said.

“What do I do now? How can I go back to work and contribute to the economy, pay my ever-increasing bills and mortgage if I can’t find child care?”

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca