Upcoming changes to how subsidized child care is funded in Saskatchewan are causing some providers to notify families that they can’t provide spaces for their children anymore — particularly for young kids attending on a part-time or drop-in basis.
Jennifer Blaedow operates Little Fawns Home Daycare, about 35 minutes northeast of the Battlefords. She has five licensed spaces and was serving seven children, but has already given notice to two of the families that she won’t have spots for them any longer.
“Unfortunately, at this time, I’m only going to take full-time families. It makes no sense for me to, you know, take drop-ins or casual care,” Blaedow said.
At issue is a change to the grant the government pays to providers to make up the difference between the $10/day fee that parents pay for the federally funded program and the full cost of the spot.
Currently, a provider can receive the grant for each child that is attending. This includes cases where children attend part-time and technically occupy the same licensed spot (for example, kindergarten kids who attend school on alternate days, or children of shift workers who may not require care every weekday). It also can include cases where a child is absent on a particular day and the provider takes a drop-in for that spot.
As of July 1, the provider can only receive the grant once, per licensed space.
Multiple providers told CBC this has destroyed any incentive to take children who aren’t full-time.
Blaedow said wait lists are more than two years long for most child-care providers in the Battlefords area, and she feels awful that she had to let kids go.
On days when she has a spot open, if she were to take a drop-in, she would only be able to charge them $10 per day, under the funding rules for licensed facilities. That equates to $1 per hour for her 10-hour days.
Maria Mukhtar, who operates a home daycare in east Regina, said she has given notice to five families that she won’t be taking their children as of July 1.
“Now, if I’m not going to get the government grant, why would I have another child for $10? Yes, I’m already getting the same amount of money from the government already. But for $10, why would I have an extra child?”
The federal government’s $10/day child-care program began in 2021 with a five-year deal, and Saskatchewan has renewed the agreement to extend another five years, until March 2031.
The $10/day program applies only to children up to kindergarten age. School-aged children are not included in that program, so Mukhtar and other providers said that means taking drop-ins for older kids will still make financial sense, but not for younger children.
In the southeast Saskatchewan town of Rocanville, there is only one child-care facility. Dream Big Child Care is licensed for 45 spaces, but currently serves 82 children, said director Cara Werner, who is also the chair of Child Care Now Saskatchewan.
She organized a community meeting last week to draw attention to the severe funding shortfall — about $66,000 a year — that she’s expecting after the July 1 changes.
Werner said she used the space-sharing model because it worked for working families and allowed her facility to supplement “insufficient funding.”
“It’s going to affect families’ ability to access child care, especially since we are trying to fill those spaces with so many casual families to try to serve as many families as we possibly can, because there’s such a space shortage,” she told CBC Radio’s The 306.
Rocanville Mayor Ron Reed spoke at the community meeting about the importance of having local child care, calling it a “critical part” of the community.
“Without reliable child care, we risk losing workforce participation, making it harder for families to live and stay in our town and harder yet to attract new families and new businesses to the area.”
Kevin Weedmark, Sask. Party MLA for Moosomin-Montmartre, attended the meeting in Rocanville and said the changes to the parent fee reduction grant would ensure fair and equitable funding. He said under the current program, shared spaces receive “enhanced funding” compared to a single enrollment.
“Providing duplicate grants for one space would limit the government’s ability to fund new spaces and support more families across Saskatchewan,” Weedmark said at the meeting.
The Ministry of Education said in a statement that providers “are not required to stop accepting part-time or drop-in children.”
It said the policy doesn’t limit how families are enrolled, but “ensures each licensed space is funded fully once, even when used by more than one child.”
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Serra Dac, who operates a home-based daycare in Saskatoon, said sharing spaces has been a way for many operators to supplement their income, including before the government began operating the $10/day program — when operators would charge families directly.
Now, she said they are hamstrung and can only charge $10/day for additional younger children.
“When we weren’t funded by the government, we filled ratios to the fullest for maximum financial benefit [and] to cover increased nutritional, operational and supply costs,” Dac said, noting it’s a good business practice employed by many other types of businesses.
She and other providers criticized the government for classifying 10 days a month as a full-time space.
“This is where I feel the government did that to themselves by assigning 10 days of care as full time. They shouldn’t be paying two full-time spaces for shared spots. One should be full-time and the other should have been drop-in rates, reducing government expenditures,” Dac said.
Some child-care providers told CBC they don’t have an issue with the changes to the parent fee reduction grant. Nicole LaRose, who has operated a home-based daycare for 36 years in Regina, said she only offers full-time spots.
She has a different concern, though: the explosion in the number of child-care offerings in her area after the implementation of the $10/day program. In 2022, she decided to become a licensed, regulated facility and spent a lot of money and time upgrading her home to comply with regulations. Now, she said it’s harder to fill the spots.
Within a three-mile radius, she has counted more than 35 regulated home daycares, she said.
“For our dedication to the community and the [Ministry of Education], we are now left feeling like they have failed us and we have been forgotten about,” LaRose said.
On the final day of the legislative sitting on Thursday last week, the Opposition NDP’s education critic Joan Pratchler raised the issue of child-care funding changes during question period, referencing the meeting in Rocanville that she also attended.
“Here’s a bit of what they had to say: Quote, ‘Our family is planning to move back to Ontario if there’s no more child care in this area.’ Quote, ‘How can you keep the economy strong when you don’t have workers because you can’t get child care?'” Pratchler said.
Talking to reporters afterward, Education Minister Everett Hindley called on the federal government to increase its funding.
“We have a limited pool of funding and we’re trying to do everything we can to work within that pool,” he said.
Pratchler said the province needs to step up and pay its part.
“They are blaming the federal government because it’s not enough money,” she told reporters on Thursday.
“But what they have not told people is they haven’t put a little cent into this. Every other province has given extra funding in addition to what the federal government has been offering, to make child care work.”
