MCCA attended lock up yesterday at the Manitoba Legislature on Provincial Budget Day. Highlights of the budget specific to early learning and child care include:

  • $2.5 million to extend $10/day child care to non-school days, which will include in-service days, spring and summer breaks for school-age children
  • $15.9 million to support new child care spaces and associated operating costs; Specifically:
    • Fund the 4947 new school age spaces previously announced
    • Provide a 2 per cent base operating grant increase announced in 2023/24, effective April 1, 2023
    • Provide one-time start up grants for 1980 new school-age capital projects
    • $6.4 million to fund a 5 per cent base operating grant increase to child care centre, effective April 1, 2024
  • Budget 2024 is increasing funding by $5 million to support better wages for child care workers and to increase workforce capacity to manage the expansion of school-age spaces

MCCA’s takeaways:

  • The Premier said (in relation to health care), it all comes down to staffing; the same holds true with Early Learning and Child Care
  • Systems do not operate in isolation of one another, nor can the investments made into systems
  • Health care will see a $309.5 million investment to recruit, retain and train more health care workers; hiring 1000 new health care workers
  • We cannot fix health care without investing into child care
  • More health care staff will rely on more child care – we cannot dismiss the reciprocity of social systems on one another.
  • Where will 1000 new health care workers find high quality spaces and who will work in those spaces?
  • While affordability for families is important and key part of system building, it’s the easy one
  • The budget falls short of MCCA’s recommendations of a robust investment into the workforce
  • While a 5% base operating grant increase is welcomed, we are still falling behind

Direct Quote from CJOB April 2nd by Jodie Kehl, Executive Director of MCCA  -> “Those new 1000 health care workers may very well need child care, who is going to provide that child care if we don’t have ECEs?”