News & Stories: Newfoundland & Labrador

Excerpt: "The Honourable Al Hawkins, Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development, announced today that $6.5 million in Capital Renovation Grants has been allocated to 59 child care service providers. The grants are being provided through the $22 million three-year bi-lateral agreement with the Federal Government for early learning and child care investments."

Excerpt: "The capacity initiative provides developmental, capital and start-up funding to not-for-profit community groups who want to develop child care centres. Enhancements (including an innovative expansion to include family child care) will increase the number of regulated child care services particularly in underserviced areas, with a focus on rural communities, linguistic minority communities, and Indigenous communities. These enhancements will increase the grant available for non-profit organizations, which is anticipated to develop up to five new or expanded licensed child care centres with approximately 180 new spaces over three years."

Excerpt: "Today, the Honourable Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, announced $10 million in federal support for Newfoundland and Labrador’s child care sector to help ensure that safe and sufficient child care spaces are available to support parents’ gradual return to work."

Excerpt: "Affordable and accessible child care, coupled with investments in education and skills development, is paramount in a modern economy. These investments, and collaboration with our education partners, will contribute to a stronger economy today and into the future. To help ease the financial pressures on families, especially on women, in Budget 2020 we are committed to $25 a day child care in 2021."

Excerpt: "The program will be delivered through the already established Operating Grant Program. Regulated child care services that participate in the program are provided a grant to offset the reduced fees they charge families. That grant amount will be increased to allow them to reduce their fees further and charge just $25 a day."

Excerpt: "Today the Honourable Tom Osborne, Minister of Education, announced the allocation of the $10.2 million from the COVID-19 Safe Restart Agreement funding for child care operations in Newfoundland and Labrador. This Federal Government investment will support child care operators and Early Childhood Educators (ECEs) for their important roles in providing child care amidst the COVID-19 pandemic."

Excerpt: "The plan features targets to achieve several shared priorities between the Federal and Provincial Governments."

Excerpt: "With the upcoming reduction to $15 per day for families using regulated child care services under the Operating Grant Program (OGP), today the Honourable Tom Osborne, Minister of Education, announced corresponding changes to the Child Care Subsidy net income threshold for all child care services. As well, Minister Osborne announced the elimination of parental contributions under that program to support lower-income families in accessing regulated child care at a reduced or no cost. This change will also result in the elimination of parental contribution for all eligible Child Care Subsidy clients and free child care for eligible families using a child care service participating in the Operating Grant Program."

Excerpt: "A Pre-Kindergarten pilot program will launch by September of this year that will create additional regulated child care spaces. At full implementation, the province-wide Pre-Kindergarten program will create approximately 3,100 regulated spaces for four-year olds by 2025-26, which will open up existing child care spaces for younger children."

Excerpt: "Infant, toddler and preschool spaces are limited across the province increasing demand for spaces. As of 2021, there are 5,498 regulated infant, toddler and preschool spaces. By working with municipalities, and not-for-profit organizations under the Child Care Capacity Program through work with the soon to be created Early Learning and Child Care Evaluation and Research Team, communities most in need of infant, toddler and preschool spaces will be identified."

Excerpt: "Readily accessible and affordable early learning and child care gives children a strong foundation, allows parents to participate in the workforce and leads to stronger families. Building on hundreds of millions of dollars in investment to date, Budget 2022 includes $94.7 million through the Provincial-Federal Action Plan, including: Almost $46 million to continue the reduction in daily fees to $10 per day by 2023; $16 million for the creation of new regulated early learning spaces, including the launch of a pre-kindergarten pilot program. Supports plans to create nearly 6,000 new regulated early learning spaces by 2026; $3 million to increase seats in post-secondary Early Childhood Education programs; $400,000 to support a wage grid analysis and implementation that will ensure early childhood educators are paid a wage that reflects their important work."

Excerpt: "Today the Provincial Government announced more than 30 locations for a pilot Pre-Kindergarten early learning program that will open in 2022-23. The pilot will result in approximately 600 new regulated child care spaces in communities throughout the province. These locations are the first in the Pre-Kindergarten early learning program created through the Federal-Provincial Early Learning Action Plan, set for full implementation by 2025-26. The full list of locations in the pilot can be found in the backgrounder below. As a regulated full-day early learning program, families will pay the regulated child care rate for each child in Pre-Kindergarten ($15 per day for the remainder of 2022, $10 per day starting in 2023). The program will run full-time, including during the summer months. The Pre-Kindergarten program will be run by not-for-profit organization(s), and registration dates for families will be announced by these operator(s) once opening dates are finalized for each site."