Question Period Note: EARLY LEARNING AND CHILD CARE SPACE CREATION

Is Manitoba meeting its space creation requirements?

· The Government of Canada is committed to the successful implementation of the Canada-wide ELCC system, with the vision that all families in Canada have access to affordable, high-quality and inclusive child care, no matter where they live.

· The Government of Canada continues to work with Manitoba on achieving our shared goals in growing the ELCC system while reducing child care fees and creating new child care spaces across the province.

· As of August 2024, Manitoba has stated that it has delivered close to half of its child care space creation goal of 23,000 new spaces, with over 3,200 spaces opened and 6,000 in the process of being created.

· Every regulated child care space that is created is another family off of a waitlist and saving hundreds of dollars each month. Savings that they can put towards paying bills, buying groceries, swimming lessons, or whatever it is that they need to best support their family.

The Government of Canada is making a transformative investment of over $27 billion over five years, as part of Budget 2021, to build a Canada-wide early learning and Child Care system with provinces and territories. Combined with other investments including in Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care, up to $30 billion over five years will be provided in support of early learning and child care. Adding previous investments announced since 2015, this means that as of 2025-2026, a minimum of $9.2 billion will be provided every year – permanently – for Early Learning and Child Care and Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care.

As part of the 2021–2022 to 2025–2026 Canada–Manitoba Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement, the Government of Canada is investing more than $1.2 billion over five years to help improve early learning and child care for children in the province.

Under the Canada-Manitoba Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement, Manitoba has committed to the development of 23,000 new full time child care spaces by 2026.

A November 20, 2024, CBC article reported that the Manitoba Child Care Association claims that only 1,654 new preschool spaces have been opened since 2021, falling short of the 23,000 spaces creation target.

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