Excerpts

Provincially licensed and funded child-care centres in Nova Scotia will no longer be able to charge wait-list fees starting this spring.

The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development announced the ban Thursday morning, which will come into effect April 1.

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Some daycares have been asking families to pay hundreds of dollars without any guarantee of actually providing a child-care spot.

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The fees will be banned under the 2024-25 child-care operator funding agreements.

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But NDP Leader Claudia Chender had misgivings about using the annual funding agreement to issue the ban.

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Chender added that a centralized waitlist managed by the province would go a step further in helping families in need of child care.

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Liberal Leader Zach Churchill said eliminating waitlist fees "will certainly help" families, but he pointed to other issues with child care as the real root of the problem.

"We have these waitlists because they [the government] have not executed on creating more spaces," Churchill said.

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The updated funding agreements for daycare operators will also include a one-time grant for operators to offset rising costs totalling $9.7 million.

The agreements also include additional funding for staff wage increases, group benefits, pension plans and mandatory property insurance.

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