Frustrated western Manitoba parents working to raise $500K to bring daycare to their community

A group of western Manitoba parents who are frustrated by a lack of access to affordable child care are working to raise almost $500,000 to get a much-needed daycare in their community.

One of those parents, Nicole Blyth, says she didn't want to have her daughter and son five years apart, but felt she had to because of how few affordable child-care spots are available near her rural MacGregor home.

Having two children in daycare at once is "just not feasible" for families who are "having a really hard time watching budgets," Blyth said.

To help alleviate that strain, Blyth and other parents formed the North Norfolk Childcare Centre board to get a government-licensed daycare built in the rural municipality, just west of Portage la Prairie.

Their aim is to create 30 child-care spaces so families have easier access to government-subsidized $10-a-day daycare.

Right now, Blyth estimates she spends around $30 a day for child care — the equivalent of about $7,000 a year — because there is no subsidized child care available in the community.

The province's child care search website shows no daycare spaces available near Austin or MacGregor, in the municipality of North Norfolk, aside from an Austin nursery school that only operates two mornings a week from September to June and doesn't accept kids under the age of three.

It shows no available spaces in Portage la Prairie, 35 kilometres to the east of MacGregor, and no full-time spaces in Brandon, 85 kilometres to the west.

One of Brandon's largest daycares, the YMCA, has suspended its waitlist due to the "overwhelming" number of kids already on it.

The North Norfolk Childcare Centre has secured a building for a facility in Austin, about 130 kilometres west of Winnipeg, through a community donation, but it still needs to raise at least $80,000 to cover design work and another $300,000 for renovations.

Blyth says the board, which formed in 2021, knows it will take a long time to get a centre built in the municipality, with a population of just under 4,000. 

"This isn't for our [own] kids," she said. "Members are doing this for the future children of the municipality."

Career, children or care

Board member Jessica Doerksen says the impossibility of finding care for her 20-month-old twin boys opened her eyes to the scope of the problem in rural Manitoba.

Doerksen estimates it would cost around $14,000 to get daycare for her boys, and it would be a struggle to find two child-care spots in MacGregor, where she lives. Getting daycare in Portage la Prairie would also mean spending more time and money.

To adapt, she and her husband changed their jobs to work more at home. She also relies on family for child care, but worries her boys are not getting the socialization they would at daycare.

It feels like rural Manitobans are missing out when it comes to affordable child-care options, she said.

"It's just kind of frustrating to not have the help that we should get."

Most Manitobans live in what's referred to as a "child-care desert"  — defined as an area where there are more than three children for every licensed child-care space. Across Manitoba, there are child-care spaces for fewer than one in five children.

Jodie Kehl, executive director of the Manitoba Childcare Association, says it's not unusual to see family planning or parents' careers affected by a lack of access to affordable care. 

"The moment that they learn that they're expecting, they're going on waiting lists," Kehl said, and she's heard of those lists reaching upwards of 700 or 800 before being closed.

"Many families will not access the child care until the child is well aged out."

Blyth knows that struggle first-hand. After her daughter's birth, she was set to return to work — but two weeks before her start date, she lost her child-care spot.

After frantically calling private home daycares, she eventually found a new home-care facility. Without that spot, Blyth said she would have had to quit her job.

Expanding child care

Building efficient child-care in Manitoba needs three things — affordability, accessibility and a quality workforce, says Kehl.

The province has said it's trying to meet these needs.

As part of Manitoba's child-care agreement with the federal government, the province has committed to creating 23,000 new non-profit child-care spaces by 2026. That includes an initiative, announced by the previous Progressive Conservative government, to expand child-care in several rural communities with modular, "ready-to-move" child-care facilities.

North Norfolk is not currently part of the list of communities slated for ready-to-move facilities.

A provincial spokesperson told CBC in an email the province works with individuals and organizations who are interested in creating new child-care spaces.

Blyth said the North Norfolk Childcare Centre board has started design work for the centre with an architecture firm and is working with the province's education and early childhood learning department to ensure the facility will meet all needed requirements.

If everything goes to plan, there is funding to build new infant and preschool spaces under the federal-provincial child-care funding agreement.

Doerksen said there's been strong community support for the North Norfolk daycare, with $100,000 already raised for the project, but people are frustrated it's taking years to see results.

She says the board wants to break ground on the project as soon as possible, and she hopes to see the daycare opened before her boys are in kindergarten.

"We need to get on the ball with this and get some child care going," she said. "There needs to be more spots open for our communities."