Manitoba to raise daily foster care rates after 13-year freeze By: Chris Kitching Posted: 6:45 PM CST Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025

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The Manitoba government is ending a nearly 13-year freeze on daily allowances, or basic maintenance rates, for foster parents with a 10 per cent hike starting later this year.

The rates will increase to between $24.32 and $34.72 for children in foster homes and those under kinship and customary care agreements, Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine announced Tuesday.

“I think the increase is a good increase,” Fontaine, who was in foster care when she was a child, told the Free Press. “It recognizes the role that foster parents play, and… on a personal note, I have enormous respect for and I have such gratitude to foster parents. It’s certainly a lot better than what we’ve had in the last many years since 2012.”

She said the province aims to introduce the new rates Oct. 1.

“The thing about this increase is that we wanted to increase the support so that it will affect all children in care,” Fontaine said.

Daily rates, which are intended to help pay for basic needs such as food and clothing, depend on a child’s age and where they live. Rates are higher in northern communities due to higher living costs, for example.

The province will set aside almost $3.6 million in the 2025-26 budget to increase allowances for the first time since October 2012.

People who care for children who have specialized needs are eligible for service fees on top of basic maintenance rates, which are paid through Child and Family Services agencies.

Some foster parents publicly called on the former Tory government and current NDP government to end the freeze, saying rates were falling behind cost-of-living increases.

Jamie Pfau, president of the Manitoba Foster Parent Association, said a 10 per cent hike equates to less than one per cent for each year of the rate freeze.

“We wanted to increase the support so that it will affect all children in care.”–Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine

“Adding another $3 to basic maintenance is not enough,” said Pfau, a foster parent in Winnipeg and the Manitoba Liberal Party’s manager of legislative affairs. “I really don’t think an extra $3 or less is going to adequately fund what foster parents need to do in order to care for children.”

Pfau had warned Manitoba was at risk of losing foster parents if the freeze continued, after some stopped fostering or reduced the number of children in their care due to financial pressures.

Linda Ens, acting executive director of the Kinship and Foster Family Network of Manitoba, a non-profit that is funded by the province, said she was “very happy” when she learned about the increase.

“It’s been a long time coming,” she said. “This is going to be a positive for foster families and kinship guardians.”

Whether $24.32 to $34.72 per day is enough is a tough question to answer, Ens said.

“I’d like to be able to say yes, but I guess that will depend on inflation and where people are at,” she said. “It’s a good start. Hopefully, the next (increase) doesn’t take 13 years to come.”

“Adding another $3 to basic maintenance is not enough.”–Jamie Pfau

Manitoba had 6,314 children in regular and special rate foster homes as of March 31, 2024, as per an annual report by the families department.

The province had the country’s highest rate of Indigenous foster children (63.9 per 1,000 Indigenous children) in 2021, a Statistics Canada study found.

Fontaine said she started working on a rate increase after she was appointed families minister following the NDP’s October 2023 election win, but “things take time.”

“Budgets take time as well,” Fontaine said.

A 2023 report by Statistics Canada found a two-parent, middle-income family with two children spends an average of $17,235 per year, or about $47 per day, to raise a child.

Pfau said basic maintenance rates should be in line with that figure.

“It’s been a long time coming.”–Linda Ens

“It is not enough to raise any child, never mind a child in care with high and complex needs,” she said about a minimum possible allowance of $24.32.

The province said 80 per cent of children in care receive more than the minimum daily basic maintenance rate.

Pfau said the foster parent association regularly surveys its 600-plus members, and between 50 to 60 per cent say they receive only the basic rate.

Some provinces hiked their allowances more than once while Manitoba’s rates were frozen.

B.C.’s basic maintenance rates are $1,531.70 per month for children aged 11 and under, and $1,711.50 per month for children aged 12 to 19 (or about $50 to $56 a day).

Last year, a 4.2 per cent increase in Alberta raised its daily rates to $24.99 for an infant to $38.12 for children aged 16 and 17.

“I think it’s slowly getting Manitoba up there in respect of other provinces,” Fontaine said about the 10 per cent increase. “But again, it’s not apples to apples when you look at other jurisdictions. I don’t think it’s fair to have that analysis on what Manitoba pays for basic maintenance versus let’s say what B.C. pays.”

B.C. has a “significantly different” population and a different budget, she said.

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca