EXCERPTS
La Ronge council will be issuing an expression of interest regarding child care facilities after reviewing letters sent to them by residents.
A letter sent to council by Jessica Green states she is concerned about the lack of public daycares in the community. It notes her objective is to make town council aware of the issue and shed light on them as more parents in the tri-communities could attest to having the same issue.
“The waitlist for public daycare is now one to two years,” Green wrote. “Individuals are not guaranteed child care before the time they are returning to work from maternity leave, which is max 18 months paid. And, because of the new subsidies, I assume there are more families able to afford daycare, but there are no additional spots to make room for the increase.”
Without child care, Green added it forces young professionals like herself to face either not returning to work or moving to where there is access to child care.
“I am facing this reality, as I am without childcare, currently on maternity leave and planning to return to my social work job of seven years here,” she wrote. “I also want to raise my kids here and don’t want to have to move locations.”
La Ronge Mayor Colin Ratushniak said council is taking Green’s letter seriously and they decided to put out an expression of interest to local residents to see who is potentially interested in starting up a daycare.
Council is also willing to look at ways at mitigating the lengthy process that can happen with a business that is necessary for discretionary uses.
“At our level, I don’t think it’s in the capacity of the municipality to run a daycare, which is why we want to help anyone who is interested and available to start those businesses,” he said. “That’s pretty much at our level what we can try to do is streamline the process and help facilitate those different avenues of grants and things that are in place already at the provincial level.”