Pre-Primary Impact on Child Care Centres - Question Period
MS. CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development. As we have heard many times in this House, there are only enough child care spaces in the province, notwithstanding the additional 1,000, for 25 per cent of children from birth to four years old. We all agree it's critical to maintain and increase the number of quality, affordable child care spaces in the province.
This is why I was deeply concerned this morning, as mentioned, to read about the closure of a child care centre in the minister's home town of Yarmouth. Will the minister please explain what immediate steps this government is taking to make sure the implementation of pre-Primary is not coming at the cost of our already scarce child care spaces?
HON. ZACH CHURCHILL « » : Mr. Speaker, I reached out personally to my constituent to better understand the reasons for this decision. I have not been able to connect with her yet but I know she has experienced decreasing enrolment before pre-Primary. I know that there is another operator in that same area who has more children than she is able to handle, and I would also mention that there is no pre-Primary site in this location and in the Tri-Counties; they're not taking out of catchment children.
I need to better understand the factors that are contributing to this situation. There is a natural ebb and flow in this sector. I think on average we do lose about 18 daycare providers a year, but in total there's been a net gain of 1,000 spaces in this province because of the continued investment year after year by this government.
MS. CHENDER « » : Mr. Speaker, in Budget Estimates the minister has repeatedly reassured me that there was information collected and analyzed, to determine where the initial pre-Primary sites were to be located. He's told me these sites were in areas where there were no childcare spaces available and that the logical assumption was that the children in pre-Primary were not children who were being removed from existing centres.
Notwithstanding the fact that the minister has repeatedly said that he's only heard from a few child care providers, yesterday it was three, today it was five; what we have seen and heard so far suggests otherwise. Will the minister commit to tabling the data collected and analysis conducted by his department that was used to determine that these sites would not negatively affect existing child care spaces, particularly those for children not eligible for pre-Primary?
MR. CHURCHILL « » : There are two barriers to accessing child care and pre-Primary learning in this province: geographic location - the physical spaces across our province - and financial costs. We are moving forward with a free universal program to improve that access so that not one in four children can access these programs but so that 100 per cent of our kids can access these programs.
We need to do this in tandem with the child care sector because both pre-Primary and child care are needed to have a robust system of support for our youth and our families. That's why we invest year after year - unlike the NDP, who actually cut funding to daycares in this province. We have invested every single year and are continuing to do that.
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