Ottawa, province adding 3,700 new child-care spaces at public schools, post-secondary facilities

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Thousands of new child-care spaces are coming to post-secondary institutions and public schools across the province.

The federal government announced Thursday it will put $132 million in funding from Canada’s Early Learning and Child Care Agreement toward 2,400 spaces across 36 public schools for children under the age of seven, and $45 million to add 680 spots at six post-secondary institutions.

The province will add $3.4 million to create 60 spots at the Université de Saint-Boniface and provide capital for expansion projects for 555 spaces across 24 public schools for kids ages seven to 12. Those projects include two new buildings, 28 stand-alone facilities on school property and six room conversions at public schools.

Funding will also cover two space renovations, two new buildings and five stand-alone facilities at post-secondary institutions. Another $3.5 million will go to the construction of seven classrooms at post-secondary institutions that offer early childhood education and training.

In total, 3,700 new child-care spaces will be created. The provincial government has added 3,875 new child-care spaces and committed to 7,700 more in total since August 2021, putting it close to 50 per cent of the way to its goal of opening 23,000 new spaces by 2026, Minister of Education and Early Childhood Learning Wayne Ewasko said.

“With more years to come for us, I know that we’re going to get there,” Ewasko said at a news conference Thursday at the Manitoba Institute of Trades and Technology campus, alongside federal Minister of Families, Children and Social Development Karina Gould.

Projects were chosen through an expression of interest released earlier this year. Timelines will be decided after project details and funding allocations are finalized.

Brandon’s Assiniboine Community College, which offers early childhood education training, is among the institutions expected to receive new spaces. The 216 new spaces will be part of a planned expansion at its North Hill campus. Assiniboine already has a 56-space child-care centre, but the current wait list for a spot is at 564.

“We have long been invested in providing quality early learning programming and responding to labour-market needs in this sector and others. These additional spaces will bolster both of these efforts,” ACC president Mark Frison in a statement.

No number of new child-care spaces will be enough if there aren’t enough well-trained, fairly paid early childhood educators in Manitoba, Manitoba Child Care Association executive director Jodie Kehl said.

The starting salary for an early childhood educator on the current wage grid is $20.73 per hour. To be a competitive industry and to address current worker shortages, the MCCA suggests salaries need to be bumped to $26.76.

“We know that a child’s learning conditions is an early childhood educator’s working conditions,” she said.

“So let’s make sure that we’re supporting fully with professional development opportunities, with group benefits, with a pension, with a provincial-funded scale that all ECE staff — no matter where they’re working in Manitoba, whether in Dauphin, Winnipeg, Plum Coulee — they’re earning a competitive salary.”

Ewasko pointed to a tuition-reimbursement plan starting this year that covers up to $5,000 in early childhood education programming for applicable students as an example of how the province is attracting new staff.

“To build facilities all over the place is probably part of the easy job,” he said. “We can build the bricks and mortar and have the spaces available, but we do need the staff,” he said.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca