An estimated 5,000 new jobs expected in Manitoba daycare sector with federal deal

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This article was published 13/12/2021 (1011 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Manitoba families can expect to save an average $2,610 per child on daycare expenses within a year from now, according to new figures tabled in Parliament.

Tuesday’s fiscal update also revealed Ottawa estimates 4,600 to 5,750 new Manitoba jobs in early childhood education.

The new data are part of federal tabulations of the Trudeau government’s $30-billion pledge to lower child care costs to an average daily cost of $10 by 2025.

Previously, both governments announced Manitoba’s $1.2-billion deal would create an estimated 23,000 child care spaces, but did not disclose the anticipated number of new staff.

Manitoba has also pledged to boost the hourly wage of child care workers to a threshold of $25, but it remains unclear when that would apply.

The Tuesday data show benchmarks for each province and territory halving the average child care cost by the end of 2022, compared with 2019.

In Manitoba, that drop should actually put the daily average cost around $10 a year from now, ahead of all other provinces except Quebec, which already had affordable child care.

That’s in part because Manitoba parental fees have been capped for decades, though the number of available spaces hasn’t kept up with demand, in part due to stagnant wages.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters Tuesday she expects the deal to help families hit by inflation.

“That is going to make a big difference for the Canadian economy… right away, as child care costs fall,” she said.

The Manitoba PC government signed on to Ottawa’s child care deal Aug. 9, in line with most provinces, but neither government has posted the actual contract.

That agreement should detail benchmarks for boosting the number of child care spaces, targets for getting more people into training for daycare jobs, and what terms are attached to promised federal funding.

Ottawa says it has a legal duty to translate the agreement into French before posting it online, but insists Manitoba can post its copy; the PC government said this month the agreement it signed Aug. 9 is not actually finalized.

The office of Families Minister Rochelle Squires clarified the hold-up on Tuesday.

“Manitoba had shared a number of minor language clean-up edits with Ottawa in early September, and it was only last week that Ottawa confirmed that they agreed with them,” a spokesman wrote, saying Manitoba would post the agreement once those issues are resolved.

“There remains one cleanup that Ottawa has to decide on, and they confirmed they would get back to us by the end of this week.”

Child care advocates say they’re waiting on that agreement to learn how the federal Liberals’ focus on non-profit spaces will align with the provincial PC government encouraging commercial operators to provide care.

Ottawa still has to sign deals with Ontario, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories in order to have a universal system of low-cost child care.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca