REGINA - Another month has arrived, along with another NDP news conference calling for action from the government to sign a deal on childcare.
At a news conference at the legislature, NDP critic for Childcare and Early Education Joan Pratchler again called for the provincial government and Education Minister Everett Hindley to sign on to an extension of the National Child Care Agreement for $10 a day childcare.
The federal government had announced the extension of the agreement back in March, which was signed on by all provinces except for Saskatchewan and Alberta. In Saskatchewan’s case the province has sought to renegotiate some of the terms, but the opposition has been consistently critical of the province for holding out.
At Tuesday's media availability Pratchler again called on the province to “stop sitting on their hands and immediately sign the deal with the federal government to get affordable accessible child care here in our province. You cannot, you can't build a province if you don't have an economy that's vibrant, you can't have a vibrant economy unless you have child care for the workers that are providing that work.”
Pratchler also called attention to a new report on childcare in the province — one that she called “further evidence” of the “critical need for the Sask Party to get child care handled properly in our province.”
The data was published last week Child Care Resource and Research Unit, and goes through the amount of available spaces in each province. Pratchler said that according to that report, Saskatchewan was “last again.”
“We're last in the available spaces for children zero to five year old where our child care would take place. The spaces that are out there, the spaces that are required, only 21 per cent of those are are funded for a child care. So the numbers are worse for (ages) zero to 12 that daycare spaces are available for only 12 per cent of our children. So 21 per cent of our children from ages zero to five have child care spaces and only 12 per cent of zero to 12 have child care spaces.
“We shouldn't be last in Canada when it comes to child care. That's our future and that future is at stake and we can't grow the economy without child care.”
Pratchler also repeated familiar NDP messaging in pointing out the other areas where Saskatchewan was in last place.
“You'll remember it was earlier this year, January, February, we were last to sign on to the nutrition program. We're last in education funding. We're last in health care progress. Last, last, last. We can't build the future if you're always last.”
As for the reasons why Saskatchewan has not signed on to a new deal yet, the province has previously pointed to the Feds’ failure to get to the table as a reason for the delay. On July 4 the province had issued this statement:
“The Government of Saskatchewan continues to call on the federal government to sit down and re-negotiate an extension to the Child Care Agreement. Ministry of Education officials have had ongoing meetings with federal counterparts as part of the current agreement, during which time they have re-affirmed our commitment to signing an extension. Education Minister Everett Hindley has also written numerous letters to the previous and now current federal Minister to set up a meeting to discuss the extension.”
Those explanations did not hold much weight with Pratchler, who recalled what excuses she heard sitting in the school principal’s office.
“Oh heavens, you know I've been a principal. I've heard a lot of tattling in my day,” Pratchler said.
“So before it was you know Saskatchewan couldn't get a meeting, or the federal government couldn't get a meeting. You know what? Maybe you can't control when you can get your meetings but what you can control is what you're doing here at home and there's lots of things they can do here at home while they're waiting to get all the details signed if that's what they're working on and I will take their word for it that they are.”
Pratchler said the items they could work on included emergency funding for “those child care centres who are on the verge of closing because they've had to use up all their reserves to cover what hasn't been covered yet.”
Another issue she pointed to was wages.
“We don't have a wage grid, wage and salary grid that recognizes experience. We don't have a pension and benefits program for our workers in child care and we don't have a retention and recruitment program that really works. Did you know that the amount of time of service that a child care worker provides on average in this province is three years? It's a revolving door and so if we'd have some of those things in place which are absolutely in the purview of the provincial government that would go a long way.”
In a statement the Sask Party government had this response to today's NDP news conference:
"Since the launch of the Canada-wide Canada-Saskatchewan Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (ELCC) Agreement in 2021, Saskatchewan has made significant progress in creating regulated childcare spaces. The number of spaces in our province has grown since the dated information in the report and continues to increase.
"As of March 31, 2025, there are a total of 33,528 operational childcare spaces in Saskatchewan including: 19,110 centre spaces; 7,434 home spaces and 6,984 other early learning spaces. Saskatchewan is 84 per cent of the way toward achieving the space target set in the ELCC agreement. Additionally, there are more than 7,000 childcare centre spaces in varying stages of development.
"The Government of Saskatchewan has been clear in our commitment to signing an extension to the current agreement. We continue to work toward achieving the best result for Saskatchewan.
"Unlike the lost and reckless NDP, we would not blindly sign an agreement when additional changes could be made to further benefit families and care providers."
