Part-time, hourly, and weekly child care spots are not covered by the new program
The Saskatchewan Party government rushed a federal-provincial child-care agreement, according to the Saskatchewan NDP and several child-care providers. This means that daycare workers are now rushing to get their facilities ready.
The federal and provincial governments said earlier this month that the goal of regulated child care in the province costing an average of $10 a day for children under the age of six will be met on April 1. This is three years earlier than the original goal, which was set in August 2021 for 2025-26.
The new pricing system is for parents whose children under the age of six go to a licensed center full time. It does not apply to part-time, hourly, or weekly child-care spaces.
Daycare workers said that because of this, it will be hard and expensive for them to provide these services.
In Saskatchewan, part-time child care means nine days of care per month. After nine days, the child’s family will have to find a new place for them to live.
But if there aren’t enough day care centers, wait lists can be years long.
The Opposition also said that the faster rollout of child care for $10 a day won’t help parents get back to work.
During question time at the legislature on Tuesday afternoon, Saskatchewan NDP Leader Carla Beck said that child care providers were not consulted before the rollout was announced.
Now, “part-time families who depend on child care centers may have to be turned away, and centers are looking for ways to do more with less,” Beck said.
Premier Scott Moe said that the federal government was to blame for the lack of consultation, but he added that the province is “able to continue to increase the number of spaces that we have been increasing for a number of years now,” which is nearly 23,000 spaces.
Dustin Duncan, who is in charge of education, also said that the role of the federal government in the agreement was not good.
“We’re basically running a system for child care, and the federal government, which doesn’t run child care, is getting involved in this area.we’re trying to reconfigure the plane while it’s still in the air,” he said.
“This has made things harder at times.”
But Beck said that putting the federal-provincial agreement into effect three years early is bad for the economy in the long run.
She said, “Forcing part-time parents out of child care spaces that don’t exist will put more people, mostly women, out of work.”
Meara Conway, who is the NDP’s critic for child care and early learning, said that the province may not have meant to cause problems with child care, but they could have been avoided if the government had talked to providers before making the announcement.
“If this government doesn’t start listening, [child-care providers] may have to cut the number of kids they can care for,” Conway said. “That means more families will have to fight over fewer spots.”
Director: We need more facilities and better pay
Brittany Pelletier, a Saskatoon home-care provider, told reporters at the legislature on Tuesday that the child-care agreement means that there will be no more subsidized fees for drop-in and part-time child-care spaces as of July 1.
“Not only will this cause providers to lose money, but it will also make it harder for us to help more families who were using part-time and drop-in spaces,” she said, adding that the change will cost her almost $500 a month.
“Offering this service no longer makes sense,” Pelletier said.
Nichole Kessel is the director of Whitewood Wiggles and Giggles Childcare Centre. Her business has only been open for seven months, but four employees have already left.
Now, she’s in a hurry to put in place new rules about child care.
“We tried to get them to give us more time, and we tried to get them to listen to us, but… no,” Kessel said.
“We need a month to change a contract, and families should do the same,” she said.
“But the government says that we have to change how we run our facilities in three weeks. It’s too much for Moosomin and Carnduff to handle. They have always run their facilities by the hour. They don’t know where to even begin.”
Kessel says that a lot more child care centers need to be built, and that people who work with young children need better pay and more training.
Duncan said there is a lot to do, but the move to $10 a day care was sped up because the province signed the federal child-care agreement in the middle of a fiscal year and didn’t want to waste money.
“I don’t think we can increase the number of spaces as quickly as people would like,” Duncan told reporters. “We need a workforce, and that will take a long time.”
“So, if we had paid more attention to that before we worked so hard to reach the $10-a-day deal… I think that would have made many people happy. We would have probably left a lot more money on the table, though.”