Building more child care spaces for families in Manitoba

Winnipeg – Families across Canada rely on access to high-quality, affordable, and inclusive child care. That is why the federal government and Manitoba are working together to create more early learning and child-care spaces to meet the needs of children and families no matter where they live.

The federal Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, Jenna Sudds, and the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Learning for Manitoba, Nello Altomare, announced the creation of over 950 new affordable child-care spaces in Manitoba. These include over 200 spaces created at three newly-opened Ready-to-Move (RTM) facilities in Lorette, St. Adolphe and Stoney Mountain, over 300 expansion spaces opened through new start-up and operating grants, and a commitment to create another 400 expansion spaces in existing child-care facilities through the new Child Care Renovation Expansion Grant.

The governments of Canada and Manitoba previously distributed over $3.4 million to child-care centres through the Child Care Renovation Expansion Grant to create new spaces through facility expansion. Going forward, the grant will award more than $14.5 million to 14 facilities to create an additional 400 spaces for children under seven.

Canada’s national child care program is saving families in Manitoba thousands of dollars each year, and the federal and provincial governments are making transformative investments to build a system that provides the spaces families need. The progress towards creating 23,000 new child-care spaces across the province continues, with nearly 3,300 spaces opened and 5,900 committed spaces for a total of over 9,200 new spaces for children ages 0 to 6.

Building a Canada-wide early learning and child-care system that works for families in every region of the country is a key part of the Government of Canada’s plan to make life more affordable for families, while supporting a strong workforce and growing the economy.