SASKATOON – The opposition New Democrats are raising concerns that applications to create new child care spaces are being rejected by the province during a time when there is a need.
At a media availability in Saskatoon on Thursday, Matt Love, NDP critic for Education, stood beside Kinza Nissar to outline her woes in applying to get a license back for her daycare.
Nissar said she and her mom were trying to open a new daycare after already having had a licensed daycare under her sister's name which closed when she left for her studies.
Love said the family received a letter on June 23. In this letter, he said, “it denied their license on the basis that there was no need for child care spaces in their area.”
Nissar made it known she was confused by the response she got back from the Ministry of Education.
She said they “cancelled our license because they said that we had enough daycares.” But Nissar pointed out that she had “15 people in my area who do not have licensed daycares around them, and they have to travel… really long (distances) to get to go to a daycare.”
Nissar said her reaction to the letter was that she was “very mad and a little sad because we have been running a licensed daycare for like an year, and we had invested a lot of money and time and effort into it. And the 10 people who were already enlisted into a daycare, we had to tell them that, oh, I'm sorry, we have to close it and we're not getting the license back.”
Love said Premier Scott Moe and his Minister of Education Everett Hindley “need to explain this, not just to this family, but to all of the families in Saskatoon who can't find affordable child care spaces.”
“Why are prospective child care operators being denied a license on the basis of no need, when thousands of families in Saskatoon are looking for child care? Multiple child care providers have shared this letter from the Ministry of Education, informing them that their license applications have been denied because the government determined that there is insufficient demand for child care in their communities.”
Love said the NDP were calling on the Sask Party government to “immediately review every license application that has been rejected on the ‘no demonstrated need.’ We're calling on them to publish the data, to show their work. What data did they use to make those decisions? It's time to show.”
In a response from the Ministry of Education, they said the Government of Saskatchewan had made significant progress toward their goal of 28,000 additional early learning and child care spaces by March 31, 2026, having met 93 per cent of this target as of May 31.
They stated that as Saskatchewan nears the space creation target set in partnership with the federal government, the province has “shifted from a period of rapid expansion to a more targeted approach, prioritizing underserved communities which includes rural and northern areas. This will ensure equitable access to high-quality child care for residents across Saskatchewan.”
As for the status of applications for new child care spaces, the ministry said that “applications to create new child care spaces that meet minimum requirements like this one have not been rejected. Those qualified applicants have received written communication advising that their application will be held to allow for further assessment of need in their community or neighbourhood, which includes a review of the number of early learning and child care spaces in the community, as well as the utilization of those spaces.”
