Province extending $10 per day child care to school holidays

Posted on December 13, 2024 by Peggy

Manitoba’s NDP government has extended a $10 per day cap on child care for school-age children to apply to non-school days — making good on a 2023 campaign promise that one advocate says is long overdue.

The measure came into effect on Dec. 8 — in time for the school winter break — and means the cap on daily fees will apply to roughly 73 more non-school days per calendar year, including holidays, in-service days, and the summer and winter breaks, the province said in a news release on Friday.

Previously, parents and guardians paid up to a maximum of $20.80 per child at licensed facilities on those days.

Manitoba signed on to a $1.2-billion federal plan to provide daycare at an average cost of $10 a day in regulated child-care spaces in 2021, and started the plan in April 2023, under the then Progressive Conservative government.

However, the maximum price only applied to school days initially, and did not cover the summer months.

The change announced this week makes the child-care system in Manitoba “one of the most affordable in Canada,” Tracy Schmidt, acting education and early childhood learning minister, said in the news release.

The reduction in fees for non-school days is being solely funded by the Manitoba government, the province said.

“It’s wonderful news for families,” said Jodie Kehl, executive director of the Manitoba Child Care Association.

With the new fee, Kehl expects the families of 14,000 school-age children, between seven and 12 years old, will save up to $700 every year.

But Kehl said the change is “long overdue,” after now Premier Wab Kinew committed to extending $10-a-day child care during last year’s provincial election campaign. His NDP defeated the Tories in the October 2023 election.

The NDP government allocated $15.9 million in this year’s budget to create new child-care spaces, increase salaries for early childhood educators and extend the $10 a day child care.

But the fee change didn’t come in time for the 2024 summer break, Kehl said, stirring frustration among parents and advocates, who sent a letter campaign to the province demanding the province meet its campaign promise.

“It has felt a little bit like a dangling carrot, because we’ve heard about it since August of 2023,” she said.

The now Opposition Progressive Conservatives also called earlier this year for the cap to be extended to the summer months.

Education critic MLA Grant Jackson also said Friday the change was overdue.

“It’s a shame Manitoba parents have had to wait 14 months for Wab Kinew’s NDP to get this announcement out the door,” he said in a statement.

However, Kehl said “at the end of the day, I’m grateful that it is now being implemented.”