The following statement was given today in the House of Assembly by the Honourable Paul Davis, Minister of Child, Youth and Family Services:

Significant Progress Being Made Under 10-Year Child Care Strategy

Mr. Speaker, child care plays a vital role in the healthy development of children, families and communities, as well as provides essential support to parents engaged in the labour market. Under our government’s 10-Year Child Care Strategy, Caring For Our Future: Provincial Strategy for Quality, Sufficient and Affordable Child Care in Newfoundland and Labrador improvements continue to be made in child care with the introduction of new initiatives and improvements to existing programs and services.

Now in its second year of implementation, Caring For Our Future is demonstrating our government’s ongoing commitment to strengthening regulated child care services. This strategy allows us to not only promote healthy child development, but to contribute to building a skilled future workforce as we improve the quality, sufficiency and affordability of our child care system.

In Budget 2013: A Sound Plan, A Secure Future, our government allocated an investment of $31.1 million for child care with a focus on continuing the implementation of Caring For Our Future. To date, significant progress has been made under the strategy including:

• Creating 465 additional regulated spaces in 21 child care centres under the Child Care Capacity Initiative;
• Developing over 400 regulated spaces in two years under the Family Child Care Initiative, bringing the total to 754 spaces in 133 regulated family child care homes;
• Implementing a revised Early Learning and Child Care Supplement Program based on a position held in a child care centre. Eligible early childhood educators working in a child care homeroom receive $6,660 annually, an increase of $3,330; and eligible early childhood educators working as program operators receive $10,000 annually, an increase of $3,400;
• Awarding Requests for Proposals to develop an operating grants program for commercial and non-profit child care centres, and to review the Child Care Services Subsidy Program; and,
• Reviewing the current Child Care Services Act and Regulations, and the inclusion supports program.

Mr. Speaker, addressing quality, sufficiency and affordability of child care services remains a key priority for our government, and we have seen almost a 70 per cent increase in the total number of regulated child care spaces since 2003. Currently, we have 7,787 regulated child care spaces throughout Newfoundland and Labrador and we are very excited about the direction that child care is continuing to take in our province.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

2013 12 02                                     1:50 p.m.