
Daycare staff and children play in the University of Winnipeg’s new infant daycare rooms. (CLEO CURTIS / UWSA)
WINNIPEG — The provincial and federal governments are funding more than 3,100 new child-care spaces across Manitoba at a cost of $8.1 million.
The funding will expand space at 177 facilities in the province to meet the growing demand for family needs.
“These investments provide operating grant funding to all early learning and child-care facilities with spaces on the current waitlist,” said Early Childhood Learning Minister Wayne Ewasko.
“This funding will support and build the capacity of existing child-care facilities across Manitoba to provide affordable, high-quality programming while working toward our goal to create 23,000 new and newly funded full-time regulated care spaces by 2026.”
The province is committing $4.8 million in new, ongoing operating grants that will fund 2,294 school-age child-care spaces for children aged seven to 12.
An additional $3.3 million is being allocated from Ottawa to fund 815 child-care spaces for infants and children under age seven. This includes 68 infant spaces, 549 preschool spaces and 198 nursery-age spaces.