For decades, Saskatchewan kept public child care funding out of private hands. A new agreement suggests that line may be blurring

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Saskatchewan built its child care system on the idea that children come before profits. That principle is now being tested by Saskatchewan’s renewed child care agreement with Ottawa.

The Canada-Saskatchewan child care agreement was extended in November for five more years, and while we haven’t seen details yet, comments by Saskatchewan Minister of Education Everett Hindley suggest that the deal will allow for the expansion of for-profit child care provision within the province. In his words, “there would be some public dollars in the form of grants available to for-profit centres.”

This may sound minor, but it is a worrying departure that should concern all advocates for a quality, affordable and accessible child care service in the province.

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KEEP AN EYE ON SASKATCHEWAN

Saskatchewan’s child care system is currently 96 per cent non-profit. This has been a deliberate policy choice of past Saskatchewan governments that refused to allow for-profit providers access to public money. But Saskatchewan is an outlier in........

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