Excerpts
As families in Brandon stare down the reality of living a “child care desert,” they can take heart that some good, as well as some troubling, change is on the horizon.
Brandon is not unique in being a child care desert: overall in Manitoba, there is a licensed child space for just one in five children aged 0-12 years. But spaces are in particularly short supply in the Wheat City, where about 6,700 children under the age of nine are vying for one of just 1,000 child care spaces.
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Finally, in Manitoba, only non-profit child care services receive sufficient funding for them to offer $10/day child care to parents. This is a longstanding strength of Manitoba’s child care policy architecture, designed to conserve public spending for public good. Exactly how the Connecting the Dots model, which seems corporate and profit-focused in everything but name, will meet Manitoba’s prudent requirements for non-profit child care remains to be seen.
While entrepreneurs are eyeing business opportunities, meaningful support to build stable community-owned and managed child care is being offered by Co-operatives First. If I were a parent in Brandon, I know what I’d be choosing in a heartbeat.