‘Much more to do’ to meet demand for licensed child care: education minister

An Elmwood child-care facility with 1,000 kids on its wait list served as the backdrop for a government news conference touting recent steps taken to meet overwhelming demand for licensed spaces in Manitoba.

“Much accomplished, much more to do — but we’re on the right track,” Education Minister Tracy Schmidt told reporters during a morning event at the Munroe Early Childhood Education Centre on Thursday.

The centre, which operates two preschool sites in northeast Winnipeg, recently underwent renovations to accommodate 48 more children at its Thames Avenue location.

Those additions are among 1,075 funded spaces that have opened across Manitoba since late last year.

Schmidt and Winnipeg South MP Terry Duguid cited that figure as a success story from the Canada-Manitoba Early Learning and Child Care Agreement.

Five years ago, Manitoba inked a deal to receive $1.2 billion in federal funding to reduce licensed daycare costs for children aged six and under between 2021-22 and 2025-26.

Ottawa has since pledged $1.77 billion more to extend its support through to 2031, as well as about $10 million for inclusion-related infrastructure projects over the last four years.

The Munroe centre’s executive director said the expansion of her program, which has allowed the facility to accommodate an additional 16 infants and 32 young children since it was completed in the winter, is about “more than bricks and mortar.”

Silvana Passante-Cantafio said it’s about allowing more parents to participate in the workforce and giving dozens of kids an opportunity to learn, grow and build relationships in a safe environment.

The centre’s wait list for preschool and school-aged care has grown by about 300 names, from about 700 to 1,000, in recent months.

Mother Cristina Molinski said she wouldn’t have been able to return to work if her family hadn’t been “so, so fortunate” to have secured spots for both of her kids at the preschool.

Molinski’s advice for navigating Manitoba’s child-care system? “As soon as you know that you’re expecting, start calling daycare centres,” she said, adding it’s important not to limit calls only to areas where parents work or the family lives.

Along with building more spaces, the education minister said Manitoba’s new wage grid, unveiled in May 2025, is supporting families by improving recruitment and retention.

“If you are a front-line (early childhood educator) in Manitoba today, you are making more than $7 an hour more than when we were elected,” Schmidt said.

At the Munroe centre, raises have prompted a handful of child-care assistants — a group of workers its leader said was historically hesitant to upgrade skills because of the expense — to go back to school.

Manitoba was among the first jurisdictions to roll out $10-a-day child care in April 2023.

Speaking on behalf of federal Secretary of State for Children and Youth Anna Gainey, Duguid called his home province “a trailblazer.”

“Affordability is a really important part of the equation,” he said.

“Affordable child care only works, of course, if families can find a space, and that’s really what today’s announcement is all about.”

Duguid indicated more than 10,000 new funded spaces for kids from infants to age 6 have either opened or begun development since October 2023. Wab Kinew’s NDP government was sworn in on Oct. 18, 2023.

A news release states nearly 1,800 school-aged spaces have opened over the last 34 months and 900 more are in the works.

The news conference also heard the Railside at The Forks development is anticipated to break ground on a future 56-space preschool site in the fall.

Manitoba’s largest child-care provider, the YMCA-YWCA of Winnipeg, operate the program that will serve families in the mixed-use development in the downtown core.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca