Child-care providers, NDP push province to extend $10-a-day program

Some Saskatchewan child-care providers feel uncertain about their future, as the provincial government has yet to extend its Early Learning and Child Care Program.

The current agreement for the program, which provides $10-a-day child care, expires on March 31, 2026.

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Cara Werner, with the Southeast Saskatchewan Directors Association, expressed concerns over the lack of an extension, saying many child-care centres are trying to make ends meet.

The association runs about 25 daycare centres in southeast Saskatchewan, with most of them operating exclusively on grants.

“It really puts everybody’s futures up in the air, because we don’t know what that’s going to look like,” Werner told reporters at an NDP media event on Monday.

“Are we going to have jobs? Are we going to have spaces? Are we going to go back to paying $1,000 for spaces for child care?”

The Ministry of Education says it is 75 per cent of the way toward its target of creating 28,000 early learning and child-care spaces in the province. (Daniel Reech/980 CJME)

Although Werner and other providers said they’d like to see an extension of the program, many also raised issues with the current agreement.

Werner said the government launched the program when many daycares didn’t have the infrastructure, staff or space available to accommodate the huge influx in demand that followed.

“A couple years into it now, I think things are running smoothly in some aspects, but we’re still having the same problems,” Werner said.

“We’re having the funding problems. We’re still completely running off grants. Nothing’s set in stone. We still don’t have a wage grid that we were promised back in 2022.”

Werner added that there hasn’t been any increase in the operating grant dollars since 2021, when the program was launched.

Joan Pratchler, the Saskatchewan NDP’s critic for child care and early education, called on the provincial government to reach an agreement with the federal government in order to extend the program. If a deal isn’t reached, Pratchler said many child-care centres will be forced to close, and parents will find themselves paying much higher fees.

“I don’t know what the holdup is. What I do know is it’s a really tenuous and precarious situation for families,” Pratchler said.

“It’s not okay. They know exactly what to do. They know how to sign that, and they need to do it, and they need to do it yesterday.”

Last week, the Government of Saskatchewan issued a statement saying the federal government gave it a two-week ultimatum to sign an extension, offering “no room for any changes or additions to the previously signed agreement.”

The province said it wanted to explore child-care strategies that have been tried in other provinces, while also addressing the issues raised by Saskatchewan child-care providers.

In a second statement, issued Tuesday, the provincial government said it is still ready to negotiate in good faith before the current deal expires.

“An extension to the negotiation should mean listening to operators to make improvements to the agreement so they can be beneficial for children, operators, and our governments for years to come,” the Ministry of Education said.

The government added that an extension to the agreement must include flexibility to address before- and after-school programs, in addition to an inclusion of terms from other provincial early learning and child-care agreements.

One challenge brought on by the $10-a-day program is the inability for centres to set their own fees. Pratchler said that means providers have to do more with less, which is difficult amid a rising cost of living.

“When you can’t raise your fees, you have to go into your reserves. When your reserves are done, now what do you do? That’s the issue,” Pratchler explained.

Megan Moore, director of child care at YWCA Regina, touted the success of the program, saying it’s made a “monumental difference” in the lives of families across the province.

However, Moore also said the existing program fails to recognize the individual needs of its five centres.

YWCA Regina operates four child-care centres in the city and one rural centre, but Moore said they all receive the same amount in funding, despite having different operational costs.

“If you were to look at larger child-care centers who are able to divvy up those operational costs, they’re in a much better place financially compared to independent centers, home operators or rural centers, who then have to carry the burden of those costs alone,” Moore said.

Moore said YWCA Regina has 300 people on its waiting list, showing an increased demand for child care since 2021.

The Ministry of Education said it is 75 per cent of the way toward meeting its target of creating 28,000 more child-care and early learning spaces in the province. It said more than 21,000 of those spaces are either operational or in “varying stages” of development.