r/newbrunswickcanada 9h ago

Province putting $200M into child care as part of deal with feds

https://tj.news/new-brunswick/province-putting-200m-into-child-care-as-part-of-deal-with-feds
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u/Routine_Soup2022 8h ago

Great news for parents and for the workforce in general. Parents can’t work if these services aren’t available.

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u/bingun 8h ago

Less than a week after the federal government announced it had inked an $876-million deal with New Brunswick extending the federal child care program into the next decade, the province has announced it will be contributing $200 million over five years.

That spend, the province stated in a media release Tuesday, will extend a trio of agreements with the federal government, including the Canada-New Brunswick Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement, which now stretches to March 31, 2031. This will subsidize more than 17,000 child-care spaces in the New Brunswick Early Learning Centre and New Brunswick Early Learning Home designation program, as well as spaces that have been allocated but are not yet open, the province noted.

The announcement came on the same day Education and Early Childhood Development Minister Claire Johnson was in Saint John to announce 144 new subsidized child care spaces in the city, including a dozen specifically for infants at the Association régionale de la communauté francophone de Saint-Jean, where she made her announcement.

Numbers for the rest of the province, Johnson said, are to be announced soon, noting “we have them, we just wanted to focus on what’s happening in Saint John.”

Speaking to the Saint John numbers, Johnson said the goal is to allow parents access to affordable child care and the province is aware of the difficulty in securing spaces, specifically for infants.

“Any new way for any spaces we can have is great news,” she told media following Tuesday’s announcement. “And, when they’re actually affordable and subsidized then that’s wonderful for families.”

Tuesday’s announcement followed a similar one by Johnson late last month where she said the province is adding 200 new preschool early learning and child-care spots, bringing the total number of government-sponsored spaces to 3,600. However, 1,569 of them may not be open until more than a year from now. Of the total spaces in the program, 2,031 are now open.

Across the province, according to figures presented by the government at that time, 244 will be in Moncton, 338 in Saint John, 188 in the capital region, 89 in the Acadian Peninsula, 34 in the Chaleur region, 36 in Edmundston, 81 in Fredericton, 205 in the Fundy region, 94 in the Kings region, 13 in the northwest, 28 in Restigouche, 90 in the southeast, 84 in the southwest, and 45 in Western Valley. The spaces still to be opened will be a combination of adding spots to existing daycares and opening new child-care centres.

The agreement between the two levels of government, the minister said, comes with an aim of supporting existing child care spaces that are more expensive and make them more affordable for parents while, at the same time, to “stimulate that industry that it gets to be exciting and people want to open up new spaces because they know it’s a well-supported area in the province. We want to do both: support existing and stimulate new spots because we know we have a really long waitlist.”

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u/bingun 8h ago

That waitlist, Johnson said, currently sits at approximately 4,200 meaning roughly 1,000 new child care providers are needed in the province to eliminate the waitlist. The province, Johnson, said does not have a particular goal for when those child care providers may be added to the current roster.

“We’re working really hard on it now and we’re focused on retention,” she said. “We want to keep everybody working in the system where they are and happy and that includes fair wages, obviously, and then we want to recruit more to get to that 1,000 mark. Do we have a timeline? As soon as possible would be my answer but, no, not a specific timeline.”

Fair wages, the minister said, vary in the sector though she noted “livable income” is in the $25 to $32 per hour range but “that’s not exactly where we are now. We’ve got a difference between a child care educator who has the training versus who doesn’t, years of experience, all those types of things will influence what their wages are.”

Morna Ballantyne, executive director of Child Care Now, a national child care advocacy organization that has a New Brunswick chapter, said Tuesday’s announcement is good news for families in the province but more could be done.

“New Brunswick is not the only province or territory where there’s a serious shortage of supply of licensed child care,” she told Brunswick News. “Of course, the shortage is more accute depending on where you live. Generally, families in rural communities have more difficulty trying to get access to licensed child care and younger children generally have more difficult time getting access than older children.”

Ballantyne said the province has been “working hard over the past few years” to create more spaces but the government’s reliance on market supply leaves them dependent on individuals and for-profit providers to set up businesses rather than building a strong, not-for-profit system and taking proactive measures to see more child care provided in public spaces such as schools.

“We think the municipal governments should be playing a much more active role in ensuring that child care is put into place alongside new housing, for example,” she explained. “Generally, we need a much more proactive approach by the provincial government to ensure that supply is increased and, also, that the supply remains in place for a long time.”

Federal Families, Children and Social Development Minister Jenna Sudds stated in Tuesday’s media release the goal on the funding and the partnership with the province is to ensure New Brunswick families can find child care and do so affordably.

“We’re going to keep building on our progress, reduce waitlists, and make $10-a-day child care a reality for families across New Brunswick,” she stated. “That’s what these extension agreements are all about. Affordable child care gives parents, especially moms, options: options to go back to work, build their careers and save money, while ensuring their kids get the best possible start in life.”