REGINA, Sask. — Child-care providers as well as CUPE Saskatchewan are in Regina this week, sounding the alarm on the funding situation facing the sector in the province.
CUPE Saskatchewan and Child Care Now are set to hold a town hall meeting on that topic at the Regina Humane Society on Monday evening. It is another in what has been a series of town halls organized over the last several weeks to raise concerns about the funding situation facing child-care providers in the province.
Prior to the town hall, leaders from CUPE Saskatchewan as well as Child Care Now shared their concerns about the funding situation at a media availability outside a child-care centre on Cavendish St.
At that event, the podium had a sign on it that read “Child Care Centre Closed.” The child-care centre behind them remains open, but CUPE and Child Care Now said the sign represented a warning that closures are coming if nothing is done to address the situation.
“Child care is in crisis in Saskatchewan,” said Kent Peterson, president of CUPE Saskatchewan.
He accused the government of cutting training opportunities for workers, of preventing access to early childhood education Levels 2 and 3, and of freezing the creation of new child-care spaces “at a time when families are already sitting on wait lists for months or even years.”
Peterson added families had been promised $10-a-day child care, but “are now paying new fees and higher costs because of Scott Moe's cuts.”
Cara Werner, chair of Child Care Now Saskatchewan and also a child-care provider, said funding model changes brought in by the provincial government on July 1 of this year have meant “growing financial pressures” for child-care providers.
“The July 1 changes have only added to that pressure,” Werner said. “The Sask. Party has restricted funding, halting tuition-free training opportunities for (Early Childhood Education) Levels 2 and 3, rolled back child-care expansion, and opened the door for new fees for families. These decisions affect more than numbers on a budget sheet. They affect whether families can find affordable child care. They affect whether educators choose to stay in the sector. And they affect whether child-care centres can continue to serve their communities.”
The July 1 changes come on the heels of the deal the province made earlier this year with the federal government to sign on to an extension of $10-a-day child care. Child-care providers had raised concerns around that same time that the new funding model would not help operators remain viable, raising concerns about potential closures.
NDP child-care critic Joan Pratchler called the new rollouts that came after July 1 “just a mess.”
“I get phone calls and emails about centres and family providers, that they're going under because they can't make ends meet anymore. It's time that our Sask. Party government recognized that child care is important and it needs to be funded as such.”
In speaking to reporters Monday, Werner called for the Sask. Party government to “reverse the July 1 changes, conduct a full review of the funding model, ensure all children receiving care are funded, and support the child-care workforce through fair compensation and a provincial wage grid.”
As for their response to the issue, Werner said child-care providers are “being proactive, and not being reactive like this government has been so far.”
Werner described child-care providers as being financially “on the downward slope now.”
“So if you look at our finances, ours, and I mean any charities, they're going to be a matter of public record. You can look into any of them. You start seeing this downward slope towards going into the red. So that's what we're trying to tell people now, is that this funding model isn't working. We're slowly bleeding out over time, and that that's a problem. And we do know that there are some child care, like family child-care centres in Saskatoon, specifically that I know personally, that have closed because of these July 1 changes. So they knew that already they were struggling with sustainability, and it just didn't make sense for them to take another hit. And so they ended up having to close their doors.”
Peterson said what they are doing is “trying to send a warning here to the provincial government and to families and parents and to employers that rely on those child-care centres to hire staff and to keep folks in their communities.”
He said early childhood education is a vital service and also an investment. “The reality is you can't open a potash mine or a new manufacturing facility or properly staff a hospital if the nurses and the workers and the miners and the folks that are working there have no place for their kids to go during the day and during the shift. And so it impacts communities all over the province. We don't want to see child-care centres closed, obviously, but that is exactly where we're heading.”
The Ministry of Education has provided a statement in which they said they remain committed to supporting affordable, accessible and sustainable child care," pointing to the province having negotiated and signed a five-year extension with the federal government through March 2031 for $10-a-day child care.
They stated that the July 1 changes are "focused on stabilizing and sustaining the child care system after a period of rapid growth across the sector. Saskatchewan has achieved 94 per cent of its target to create 28,000 spaces under the federal-provincial agreement."
They also note the number of Certified Early Childhood Educators (ECEs) in Saskatchewan has increased by 56 per cent, and the number of ECE level III’s by 86 per cent.
The ministry adds that the province will continue to support development of additional child care spaces through a "targeted approach focused on addressing underserved communities, including rural and remote." They state support will also continue for early childhood educators through tuition reimbursement and workforce development initiatives, with a focus on entry-level certification. The province said this will allow additional funding to be directed to core operating costs that support the long-term sustainability of the sector.
"The Government of Saskatchewan will continue working with the sector to support a sustainable, affordable child care system for families across the province."
