Changes to reduce child-care costs announced by Manitoba, feds

Article content

Manitoba is lowering child-care fees in regulated spaces by 30% and expanding the number of spaces being subsidized, the province and federal governments announced Thursday.

The Child Care Subsidy program is expanding its eligibility on Feb. 6, which will result in nearly half of Manitoba’s regulated spaces being subsidized. The expanded eligibility will see 12,000 additional families get support, which the province says triples the number of subsidized spaces.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.

Changes to reduce child-care costs announced by Manitoba, feds Back to video

In August 2021, the Manitoba government signed a deal with the federal government with the goal of reducing child-care fees by 50% by the end of 2022. Further to this, Manitoba aims to have $10 out-of-pocket fees a day for child care by March 2023.

This agreement also provides the province with more than $1.2 billion in federal funding over five years to improve access to affordable child care.

Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson said the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has brought the costs of child care to the “forefront.”

“This pandemic really woke everyone up in the business community across the political spectrum to say, ‘Wow, we need to make sure we have affordable high-quality child care,” added Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was piped in by video to the news conference.

Stefanson said the pandemic has been particularly hard for working women. She added that this increase in eligibility will allow working women and families the support needed to return to work, attend training programs or return to the classroom.

“We know that a parent’s ability to participate in the workforce may be dependent upon access to affordable child care,” Stefanson said. “Today’s announcement will allow more Manitoba families to participate in the labour market and maintain employment while knowing their children are receiving safe and nurturing care.”

The province says that of the 38,000 spaces available in the regulated child-care system, 6,000 children currently receive a full or partial child care subsidy.

The agreement outlines that Manitoba will commit to providing 23,000 more spaces for children under the age of seven by 2025-26.

Families with a net household income of $23,833 to $37,116 will be eligible for a full subsidy, and partial subsidies are available for household incomes of $37,542 to $82,877.

To pay for this endeavour, Manitoba is increasing the annual funding to $82.7 million, with $64.5 million coming from Ottawa through the Canada-Manitoba Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care agreement.

rstelter@postmedia.com

Twitter: @steltsy94