“This is a systemic issue. We are not being funded enough to properly operate a child-care program in 2025.”
Alec Salloum
Regina Leader-Post
Based upon current subsidy levels, Regina daycare provider Cara Steiner is wondering how she’ll be able to continue paying the bills.
“At the start of December (2024), I received our funding from the Ministry (of Education) and I looked at it and I just thought, ‘that’s not even enough to run two payrolls this month,’” said Steiner, executive director of Prairie Lily Early Learning Centre, which has three Regina locations.
Saskatchewan is one of two provinces (along with Alberta) yet to sign a deal extending the federally subsidized $10-a-day child-care program into March 2031. Without the extension, it would end in less than a year — March 2026.
Saskatchewan Minister of Education Everett Hindley said Tuesday that part of the holdup in signing a new deal came down to issues identified by stakeholders.
“We are trying to find ways to address some of this, whether it’s the funding gaps that are there or other challenges that have been identified with the existing arrangement,” explained Hindley, who said there was concern when the initiative launched about hitting federal targets on daycare spaces as well as the “equitability” of the deal.
“(Daycare) programs can’t keep waiting and waiting for a funding model or for changes to happen,” said Steiner. “They’re in a critical point where they need that support right now.”
Even if the federal program is renewed, Steiner says the manner in which daycares are funded needs to change. Operators have been calling for a funding model that stabilizes the industry in the province.
Steiner said she has heard from a number of Regina-based daycares that are running deficits. The funding structure between daycares and the Ministry of Education has led to much of the hardship, according to Steiner and other operators and workers in the sector.
The ministry responded that “$19 million in one-time operating support grants was provided to child care facilities in February 2024” due to inflationary pressures. And, as of April 1, 2023, an additional $2.8 million in funding was provided “to child care facilities with the lowest fees to ensure greater equity among child care facilities.”
How are daycares funded?
The federal $10-a-day program was announced in 2021 and launched two years later in Saskatchewan. It’s designed to offer regulated child care to parents with kids under the age of six for an average of $10 per day.
The program is funded by the Canadian government, which leans on the provincial Ministry of Education to compensate daycare providers across the province while they deliver reduced rates to parents. It means families pay $10 a day for child care while the government picks up the rest of the tab, paying directly to daycares and early childhood learning centres.
Specifically, this is done through the Canada-Saskatchewan Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement.
Therein lies the problem and where operators are asking for change. Steiner says the current framework is not keeping up with rising costs, pushing centres to bankruptcy.
‘This is a systemic issue’
Back in December 2024, Steiner surveyed a group of daycare operators and directors in Regina, asking each one if they made a profit in 2023.
“Fourteen out of 22 respondents said no, they did not make a profit,” said Steiner.
Next question: Are you operating at a profit or a loss in 2024? Sixteen respondents answered with the latter.
“This is a systemic issue,” said Steiner. “We are not being funded enough to properly operate a child-care program in 2025.”
Before signing onto the federal program, a daycare anywhere in Saskatchewan could charge, for example, $600 a month while another located in the same city or region could charge $850.
When the deal was signed, fees were frozen, according to the Ministry of Education.
“Providers no longer are able to set the fees in a way that covers their budget or helps them make ends meet,” said Steiner.
There’s also an iniquity identified by Steiner and other operators where older programs that existed prior to the countrywide rollout were unable to adjust fees while new daycares coming online after the rollout are able to charge more.
Praise for the concept, not the execution
Despite criticism of its rollout, daycare operators continue to praise the idea behind $10-a-day child care.
Deana Williams, executive director of Little Memories Child Care Co-operative, said even as her own centre faces possible closure as early as May, the motivation for the program is commendable.
“All our families, they deserve a system where they can have affordable and accessible child care,” she said recently.
Steiner agreed.
While there are issues, “the government did a phenomenal job of lowering fees for families,” she explained. “I will never be negative about that,” but “there was a lack of policy.”
Since 2021, there has been an 11-per-cent increase in funding for daycare programs. However, operators note that the increase does not keep up with inflation and centres that started with higher fees see greater funding increases relative to their rates.
“It’s just continuing to increase the disparity between programs and I hear a lot from rural providers as well, that they’re bringing in even lower fees than our Regina, Saskatoon centres,” said Steiner.
What’s working in other provinces?
Looking at Prince Edward Island and Ontario, Steiner said those provinces provide uniform funding for each daycare space but offer additional subsidies based on what the centre pays in rent.
Some daycares are located in schools and pay little to no rent, while others pay thousands of a dollars a week.
Also, P.E.I. has a sliding scale where funding goes up based on the number of diploma-level educators in your centre. Nova Scotia developed a wage grid along with benefits and pensions for daycare workers.
“If there was a funding model where the ministry could take those different things into account, I think we see a lot more sustainability between our programs, and it would relieve a lot of the pressure that operators are facing,” said Steiner.
“There’s so many places across Canada that we can look to and learn from what they’re doing.”
