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Costly gaps found in updated $10-a-day childcare agreement

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Author: 
Robinson, Marija
Format: 
Article
Publication Date: 
5 Mar 2026
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Months after Saskatchewan signed the new $10-a-day childcare agreement, families are learning their children don’t qualify.

Back in November 2025, the provincial government announced it had reached an agreement with Ottawa to continue offering the daily $10 price for daycare.

While this announcement came later than expected, the delay brought new information – now children turning six in kindergarten would qualify for the lower cost childcare until the end of their school year. Previously, it only included those five and under.

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While the previous understanding was that six-year-old kindergartners who aged out of the $10 childcare would re-qualify at the start of next month, that’s not the case, based on an email written by the government on Mar. 2 and shared by the NDP.

“We now understand that as the new agreement begins April 1, only those children who are still receiving the benefit prior to April 1 will be eligible,” the email read.

That means if a kindergartner turned or will turn six between January to March 2026, that child is permanently ineligible for the $10 childcare since they aged up under the conditions of the existing agreement.

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