Rolling closures of Alberta childcare centres begin Tuesday, advocacy group says

Some families were left scrambling Tuesday morning as childcare operators across Alberta participate in so-called rolling closures.

It’s part of a campaign to bring attention to what many are calling a financial crisis — with some operators saying they’re often left unable to pay their monthly bills.

The Association of Alberta Childcare Entrepreneurs has said some 30,000 childcare spaces will be affected by the rolling closures — and that’s potentially 30,000 families.

Among them are the Bow Valley Child Care Centre and the Imagination Tree Childcare Centre in Calgary’s southeast.

AACE chair Krystal Churcher says they’re at a critical juncture, adding it’s crucial for parents to understand the real costs and unintended consequences of the $10/day childcare program before it’s too late.

“Our intent is never to disrupt parents or cause any kind of extra stress for families, but we feel like it’s really important for the country and the province to put the brakes on this program to really take pause and try and move forward in a way that really respects the parents in our province,” she said.

The non-profit is calling on the province to provide emergency funding to allow them to meet their obligations.

Meanwhile in Edmonton, the Montessori Play and Learn Centre says its trying to raise awareness of the recent affordability grant and to make sure parents are well informed.

“No one wants to do this, we’re in the childcare industry – we are caregivers. We want to support the children in our care, we want to support the families who rely on us, it’s a really big deal for us to close like this and the association, the AECE has been working on this tirelessly for over two years and many individual operators have also been writing letters asking for support and reaching out for help, and while we are being told we’re being hard, it doesn’t feel like there is any action going on to actually help,” said Juliana Lambert, with Montessori Play and Learn Centre.

“We’re receiving a lot of messages of support. A lot of families have written letters in support to us to children’s services and various ministers – they’ve sent text messages, they’ve sent emails. They are saying that they would like to support us and they support what we do and their children are happy here and they want us to continue to be able to offer programs as we have been.”

Lambert adds the current long-term structure will make it difficult for many centres to stay open until 2025.

“If a centre doesn’t sign onto an agreement then a centre is no longer eligible for not just the affordability grant, but for any of the funding that the government has traditionally provided since even before COVID times,” explained Lambert.

“So one of those fundings is the wage top-up for the educators and if educators don’t access that funding, their salaries are significantly reduced and they would look elsewhere for a job honestly, they would have to.”

Adding, “It’s an industry of mostly women employees.  It’s mostly women who do this job and there are an awful lot of single moms who are doing this job and they need to be paid a fair wage and a living wage.  So without access to that top up, most centres would not be able to pay that level of salary.  “

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Searle Turton, Alberta’s child and family services minister, says a vast majority of daycare operators support $10/day childcare programs, and he’s disappointed that a small number of those who don’t are choosing to scare families with random closures instead of engaging in good faith on the development of a new early learning and childcare funding formula.

“Childcare operators have my full support and I recognize the difficult situation they are in. Record inflation thanks to out-of-control spending by the federal government has significantly increased operating costs and the current cost control framework established by the federal government does not recognize this,” said Turton in a statement.

“The Premier will be requesting a meeting with the federal minister to discuss this further and to urge the federal government to consider changes to the framework that would support operators facing inflationary pressures.”

In Ottawa, federal finance minister Chrystia Freeland says they put a lot of money behind the funding agreement.

“First with Ahmed Hussen, then with Karina Gould, and now Jenna Sudds has taken the reins — doing deals with every single province. They signed up to the program because it is good for the people of each province and territory in Canada,” she said.

Freeland says Ottawa budgeted $30-billion over five years to phase in the child care program targeting to have thousands of spaces with a $10-a-day fee by 2026.

“We put a huge amount of money on the table in the 2020 budget for early learning and childcare and we went across the country systematically,” she added.

In a statement, NDP Critic for Childcare and Children & Family Services Diana Batten, says the Opposition stands with childcare operators.

“Childcare operators, parents, and advocates have been telling the UCP for years that their formula was broken, but they refused to listen. It is the government’s job to listen to the people in this province and the UCP has failed, once again,” she said.

“For the last two years, daycare operators have been shouldering the weight of the UCP’s poor decisions,” Batten added. “The federal program is a cost sharing agreement and the UCP has failed to invest anything new to support our economy and these business owners.

“It shouldn’t have to come to this. Childcare providers shouldn’t have to shut their doors, leaving families without options, just to get the government’s attention.”

-With files from Adrienne South