NDP to establish 4,500 subsidized daycare spaces
$45.6M in federal funds to help create 78 centres, boosting $25-a-day program
Alberta’s NDP government is creating 4,500 new subsidized daycare spaces with an infusion of federal cash.
But the Notley government’s push for universally available $25-a-day daycare remains a work in progress as the government prepares to tighten its belt in the upcoming spring budget.
Children’s Services Minister Danielle Larivee announced Tuesday the province will establish as many as 78 new non-profit early learning and child-care centres, with a capacity of 4,500 $25-a-day spaces.
Those will come in addition to 22 existing facilities, which currently offer 1,200 spaces.
“We know the need is great and we know the centres are making a difference,” Larivee said at the Imagine Early Learning and Child Care Centre in northeast Calgary.
The government is asking for proposals “for child-care programs that show innovative approaches,” with the successful applicants to be announced in the spring.
The new spaces are being funded with $45.6 million in federal funding over three years, which Alberta is receiving under a multilateral agreement between Ottawa and the provinces and territories. The province funded the first round of subsidized spaces to the tune of $10 million.
In the 2015 provincial election, the NDP promised to move toward $25-a-day daycare “as finances permit.”
“We’ve always been clear that our goal is universal $25-a-day child care across Alberta,” Larivee said Tuesday.
But two years of recession that battered the province’s bottom line have meant slower progress than the NDP wanted on the childcare front.
And after two straight budgets with deficits in excess of $10 billion, Premier Rachel Notley and Finance Minister Joe Ceci have said the government is aiming for “compassionate belt-tightening” in the 2018-19 budget.
FISCAL RESTRAINT
Larivee said that given the climate of fiscal restraint, she can’t say whether the government will move to create further spaces in the spring budget or how far along it will be by the time of the next provincial election in 2019.
“Given the fiscal circumstances, our government is very committed to moving forward with our path to balance,” said Larivee. “Those are the conversations we’re going to be having.”
The United Conservative Party, which has vowed to dismantle much of the NDP’s agenda if it wins the 2019 election, would not make an MLA available for an interview Tuesday.
But, in a statement, UCP MLA Leela Aheer said the party is concerned about whether the daycare program is financially sustainable when the government is awash in red ink. “We want to support families, but we think it’s better to keep dollars in the pockets of families rather than taking dollars away from families through tax increases,” said Aheer, the children’s services critic.
Larivee said it’s difficult to say how many spaces would be needed to hit the government’s goal of universally available, affordable daycare. When implemented, the full 5,700 subsidized spaces will account for about 20 per cent of licensed spaces in the province, but there are many more children in unlicensed facilities.
Danielle Pitman, whose son is enrolled at the Imagine Early Learning and Child Care Centre, said the program had been a lifeline as the day home he previously attended was going to close.
“It’s made a huge difference to me and my son and my family who are able to afford great child care,” a choked-up Pitman told reporters. A recent report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives looked at daycare fees across the country.
Calgary ranked fifth-highest at an average of $1,250 a month for infant care compared with Toronto, where the cost was $1,758, Mississauga, Ont., at $1,452, Vancouver at $1,360 and Kitchener, Ont., at $1,325.
The cheapest daycare was $168 a month in Montreal, where the Quebec government provides a significant amount of public funding.