News & Stories: Policy Monitor

Valuing Children, Families and Childcare Report: The task force had a mandate to provide a path for creating the right conditions for child care and to suggest ways to address the challenges parents face in obtaining access to quality and affordable child care services.

The plans, entitled Everyone at Their Best for the anglophone sector and Donnons à nos enfants une longueur d’avance for the francophone sector, identify objectives for the early learning and education system and establish clear expectations for standards and performance.

Excerpt: "Understanding the importance of early childhood education in the years before kindergarten and the struggle many families face over the cost of daycare, our government will increase the amount it provides to New Brunswickers to help pay for the cost of daycare. By January 1, 2018, in keeping with our platform commitment, we will have doubled the budget of the daycare assistance program."

Excerpt: "The provincial government is investing $1 million to support the Early Learning and Child Care Trust Fund."

Excerpt: "Under this agreement, the federal government will invest close to $30 million to improve early learning and child care for preschool-aged children in New Brunswick. The province will contribute an additional $41 million for a total of $71 million; Investments will transform at least 300 current child care providers into designated New Brunswick Early Learning Centres which will provide more quality spaces, have lower fee structures, and implement inclusion policies and guidelines for francophone minority communities. Funding will also be used to provide professional development opportunities for early child care educators and to support other initiatives to improve early learning and child care in the province."

Excerpt: "Operators of child care facilities will be eligible for $12.2 million in grants as part of a plan to designate hundreds of facilities as Early Learning Centres offering high-quality, inclusive and affordable services."

Excerpt: "New Brunswick Early Learning Centres will offer services to preschool children aged five and under through a voluntary application process. Daycares are not required to be part of this program. Those that choose to do so will work in collaboration with the government with the aim of offering equitable and affordable access to high-quality early learning and child care services by removing barriers linked to family income, children’s abilities and needs, language and minority settings."

Excerpt: "The free daycare program is for parents who are either working or attending school, with children aged five and under attending a designated New Brunswick Early Learning Centre."

Excerpt: "The provincial government announced today that families with children aged five and under attending a designated New Brunswick Early Learning Centre will not pay more than 20 per cent of their income for child care."

Excerpt: "In addition to the multi-year bilateral funding, your government is also investing $28 million to support wage increases for early childhood educators. This funding will be rolled out over four years beginning in 2019–2020 and raise wages from $16 an hour to $19 an hour for trained early childhood educators by 2022–2023."

Excerpt: "The provincial government has signed a three-year bilat-eral agreement under the Early Learning and Child Care federal framework The provincial and federal funding will result in the creation of NB Early Learning Centres through which families will access affordable quality child care Grants to help pay for the cost of providing vquality child care will be provided through EECD directly to the NB Early Learning Centres There was a phased-in approach for the designation initiative, Phase 1 began in Q4 2017-2018 with 55 facilities being initially targeted, and subsequently approved, for designation."

Excerpt: "The provincial government has announced a 75 cent per hour wage increase for early childhood educators who have completed a two-year college diploma or a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education or a related field."