Trail Talking

Recently, our government has made a number of exciting announcements regarding child-care, and I am pleased to highlight that the Dawson Trail constituency has been included in these recent announcements. In particular, Anola School has been approved to receive 89 proposed child-care spaces as part of the new child-care capital expansion projects. The Town of Ste. Anne will also add more child-care spaces, alongside the RM of Wallace-Woodworth, for a total of 148 spaces across both communities.

Over the next three years, our federal and provincial governments will provide more than $180 million in funding to expand child-care spaces in public schools and post-secondary institutions across Manitoba, creating more than 3,700 new licensed and funded infant, preschool, and school-age child-care spaces. Funding will be provided under the Canada-Manitoba Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement. $132 million will be allocated across 36 public schools to create more than 2,400 spaces for children under seven. Another $45 million will be provided to support more than 680 new child-care space expansion projects for children under seven across eight post-secondary institutions.

Hundreds of new child-care spaces will be opening in rural Manitoba as our federal and provincial governments celebrate the opening of the first of eight ready-to-move (RTM) child-care centres in Headingley. More than $94 million has been provided by Canada and Manitoba for two phases of the RTM child care project, which uses a hybrid construction model to develop spaces quickly. The RTM model allows high-quality, new facilities to be built under controlled conditions before they are moved to the final site and placed on a permanent foundation. The Canada-Manitoba Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement fully funds the construction costs in exchange for land, servicing, and free rent space for the child-care operator.

Following the opening of the Headingley facility, the Oak Bluff, Whitemouth, Stonewall, East Selkirk, Ile des Chênes, Rosenort, and Portage la Prairie facilities will open by October. Phase Two of this project will create facilities in the cities of Dauphin and Morden, the towns of Melita and Morris, and the rural municipalities of Hanover, Taché, MacDonald, Rockwood, Sifton, Ritchot, Argyle, and Brokenhead, as well as Lake St. Martin First Nation and Norway House Cree Nation. Additionally, $26 million is being invested this year to support the inclusion of 300 more spaces. 152 more spaces will be added across six of the community projects in phase two, in addition to the 148 spaces opening up in the Town of Ste. Anne and the RM of Wallace-Woodworth. When complete, both phases of the project are expected to create 1,970 new child-care spaces in 25 rural and First Nations communities across Manitoba.