Policy Monitor

The Premier of New Brunswick provided a progress report on its three-year action plan, Putting Children First: Positioning Early Childhood for the Future, unveiled last spring. Included in the plan are integrating early childhood and education services, realigning the boundaries for local early childhood services with school district boundaries and extending the definition of early childhood up to children 8-years-old.

The government announced additional professional development funding for staff and board members of child care centres. "Grants are provided to reimburse costs associated with attending professional development events such as workshops or conferences held in the province."

The government announces a commitment to fund 20 new preschool and 45 new school-age child care spaces.

The Department of Education has released a discussion paper Modernizing Child Care in Ontario, "to begin a conversation that will help move Ontario towards a high quality, accessible and co-ordinated early learning and care system for all children."

The provincial government has released a three-year, $38-million action plan, Putting Children First, that will integrate early childhood services into the school system.

The Manitoba Centre for Health Policy has released a new report on the Early Development Instrument results in Manitoba. The report focusses on: socioeconomic adversity and children’s vulnerability at age five; biological vulnerability at birth and children’s vulnerability at age five; and children’s vulnerability at age five in three at–risk subgroups of children.

The province will consult Nova Scotians on a new early years strategy. As part of the initiative, the government released a discussion paper and has appointed a nine-member advisory council.

The Department of Education, along with the departments of Child, Youth and Family Services and Health and Community Services launched The Power of Play, "a multi-media promotional campaign designed to highlight and encourage play-based learning."

Excerpt: "Amendments have been proposed to the unproclaimed Early Learning and Childcare Act to establish a single piece of legislation called the Early Childhood Services Act. The new act would combine all early childhood programs and services such as preschool autism intervention, prenatal support, early learning and childcare, and early intervention.... Changes to the section of the act detailing curriculum frameworks are proposed so that licensed childcare facilities use only one of the two frameworks provided by the department."

Excerpt: "The allocation is based on the 2012-13 provincial budget which provided $2 million to develop 500 new child care spaces across Saskatchewan, and an additional $4 million to cover the capital costs of those new spaces."

The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador "has entered into a partnership with the Margaret & Wallace McCain Family Foundation and the Jimmy Pratt Foundation to study innovative ways in which to integrate early childhood learning programs in Newfoundland and Labrador with a view to enabling the smoothest possible transition to school."

Budget 2012 includes new funds for child care for 2012-13, "doubling its investment by 2021-22 to approximately $56 million per year under a new 10-Year Child Care Strategy."