N.S. Liberals go after government over child-care space creation

The provincial Liberals went after the Nova Scotia government’s progress on child care during question period in the provincial legislature Tuesday, accusing the Progressive Conservatives of making little net gain in the creation of new spaces.

“Wait lists are years long, parents are quitting their jobs and not returning to work, all because of this government’s inability to deliver the Canada-Nova Scotia child-care agreement,” Liberal Leader Zach Churchill said. 

“The government left $123 million in child-care funds on the table because they didn’t do the work and submit an action plan. . . . Why can’t this government deliver on the child-care commitments that it made to the people of this province, even considering the fact that so much federal money is left sitting on the table waiting to be used?”

Education and  Early Childhood Development Minister Becky Druhan said the government has been making progress in the expansion of child care across Nova Scotia and the province’s action plan has been submitted to Ottawa.

“We are leaving no funds on the table and our progress on child care is full steam ahead,” she said. 

“This a sector that has been under-resourced and ignored for decades. If I could snap my fingers and do this work right away I would absolutely do that, but this transformation is taking time. But we are moving ahead very rapidly.”

Churchill said the government promised 1,500 new spaces for child care, and the lack of progress is affecting the skilled labour shortage and doctor recruitment, “and yet we do not see urgent action from this government when it comes to creating new child-care spaces.”

He said the government hasn’t achieved a fraction of the promised new spaces.

Druhan said that she understands the challenges around waiting lists for child-care spaces but the government has opened 2,000 new licensed spaces across the province while decreasing fees by half.

Bedford Basin Liberal MLA Kelly Regan said the government didn’t meet its daycare targets last year “and they’ve been completely opaque about what progress, if any, has been made this year” and wanted Druhan to provide the net gain in seats since an agreement was signed with the federal government in 2021.

Druhan repeated that the government has created more than 2,000 new spaces, but Regan said that a freedom of information request “showed that, as of May, there was only a net gain of 28 child-care seats in the province since July of 2021.”

“If I could snap my fingers and do this work right away I would absolutely do that, but this transformation is taking time.”

– Education and  Early Childhood Development Minister Becky Druhan

“That’s childcare seats, not after-school programs and everything else,” Regan said. 

“This is completely inadequate. . . . We’re all hearing from desperate parents who cannot find infant spaces anywhere in HRM. How does the minister expect parents to return to the workforce after having a baby if (the government) had produced a net increase of less than 30 spots since they took office two years ago?”

She asked if Druhan believed that anyone would describe that number as a successful rollout of an important program.

Druhan disputed the number and said that before- and after-school spaces are important and the need for child care does not end when children enter school. 

“Families need care before and after school, and those are part of the spaces we’ve created, too.”