‘Disappointing and exhausting’: $10-a-day child care rollout not smooth for everyone

In March, the Saskatchewan government celebrated being the third province in the country to have $10-per-day daycare, but the rollout has been less than smooth for some.

Nichole Kessel came to the provincial legislature last week for the second time, asking for the same thing. Kessel is the director of Wiggles and Giggles Childcare Centre Inc., and also vice-chairperson of the Southeast Saskatchewan directors association.

She’d come two months ago to ask for flexibility from the provincial government on the child care rollout. She and other daycares in her area were on the bubble, trying to comply with a requirement they change nearly their entire system to remove hourly and daily billing within a matter of weeks.

“There were tears and stress and everything across the board,” said Kessel about the changeover.

Hourly billing that was often used by people doing part-time or shift work wasn’t accommodated under the new program. And as of July 1, government won’t be providing subsidies for part-time care over nine days a month either.

In a meeting at the time, Kessel said Education Minister Dustin Duncan told her they wouldn’t have to have their operations changed over until the end of June. But when she returned home, Kessel said the ministry consultant told her that wasn’t the case. So she and other daycares in the area had to have their daycares changed over in just 25 days.

Kessel said centres like the ones in Moosomin and Carnduff had been completely hourly and had to move into full time.

“Both centres had to cut families to make it work. They had so much work to do,” said Kessel.

Those centres are expecting to lose families when they move away from daily care as well.

“About half of our organizations have already committed to cutting their daily families because it’s not worth all the scheduling, and the food, and keeping the staff in place just to have a child at $10 a day with no government subsidies,” said Kessel.

Kessel said it seemed like the minister didn’t even know his own material in the meeting and it seemed, in making the plan, the officials didn’t know the industry very well.

“In the meeting with the minister’s office along with the president of my directors association, they told her they didn’t even know that centres in rural Saskatchewan even operated hourly, and that was even still an option,” said Kessel. “So they weren’t even aware that their own centres were operating hourly.”

The NDP’s child care and early learning critic, Meara Conway, said the provincial government is making announcements without talking to the sector and talking to the people on the ground.

“(The government) is making announcements and then Nichole hears about the announcement the same day the public does. This isn’t good governance, this isn’t a responsible way to do these goals,” said Conway.

Conway said the provincial government wanted the headlines for $10-a-day daycare but don’t want to do the work to make sure it’s a success.

While dealing with the frustrations and mountains of paperwork in changing over the business, Kessel said she’s also struggling to find and keep employees.

The provincial government has introduced paid tuition and wage bumps for Early Childhood Educators who have their certificates, but Kessel explained it’s more complicated than that.

“They talk about wage enhancements, they talk about how you get up to $5 an hour (more) depending on your education. Who in Whitewood, Saskatchewan has their Early Childhood Education levels when we’ve never had a daycare before?” she asked.

Kessel pays $13.21 an hour to start off, then employees can get their training. But she said a new Dairy Queen is moving in nearby and it’s paying $15 to start off, with benefits.

“It’s going to be all for nothing if we can’t compete with the wages of Dairy Queen,” said Kessel.

“It’s disappointing and exhausting and very sad, very, very sad. (I’m) choking back my tears. It just feels like a lot of effort that we put in that might be for nothing and our centre will crumble … Something needs to change now.”

Kessel said the province was supposed to have a workforce strategy, with a wage scale, ready for the end of March but it hasn’t shown up yet. So she’s issued a challenge to the minister, given the short amount of time they had to change their operations: She’s giving him until June 9 to present this strategy and until June 23 to have it implemented.

“And if he’s not able to put it in play by June 23, he should go back and retroactively pay all of the Early Childhood Educators and hand out all of the paperwork just like we did,” said Kessel.

The Ministry of Education said in a statement it had reached out to Kessel’s child care facility to discuss these challenges. It also said the province is supporting the Saskatchewan Early Childhood Association in the development of an Early Childhood Educator recruitment strategy. It’s also working on a workforce strategy to lay out a longer-term vision for the sector along with a wage grid.

Duncan wasn’t available to answer questions about this situation last week. During Question Period that day, when asked about it by the opposition, Duncan said he has committed to a funding model that wouldn’t incentivize daycares to choose full-time children over part-time.

“That commitment still stands and I will ensure that the ministry puts that in place,” said Duncan.

Duncan had said previously that the provincial government was concentrating on getting $10 a day first to avoid leaving federal money on the table, and it would work out things like the workforce and wage scale after.