For-profit operators feel squeezed by government

Owners and operators of the province’s 201 private forprofit child-care centres say they are being squeezed out of business by the provincial government in its push toward a completely publicly funded system.

“We are encouraging Nova Scotians to stand behind us and encourage the premier to sign an amendment to include private operators in the plan,” said Lisa Beddow, owner of six for-profit Friends for Life child-care centres, located in Halifax Regional Municipality, Enfield and Truro.

There are 344 licensed child-care centres and family home child-care agencies in the province, only 143 of which are non-profit operators.

There are a total of 17,000 child-care spaces across the province, 57 per cent of which are provided by private operators, Beddow said.

Last week, Beddow said the province offered the private operators, of which she is a representative, three options. Two were to move forward under the federal-provincial child-care agreement reached in July and the other was to go it alone without any provincial funding.

The first option is to have publicly funded daycares take over the private business, with a small payout to the current owner, said Beddow, who has been operating child-care centres for 17 years and now employs 80-plus early-childhood educators for 420 child-care spaces.

“They (government) would control all of our staffing, all of our parent fees, all of our parent wait lists, ultimately the full business,” Beddow said of the first option.

The second option is for the operator to go nonprofit, “ultimately handing over our business,” Beddow said. A larger payout would be offered to the operator in that option.

The third option is for the operator or owner of the private daycare to continue on their own without any government assistance.

“That is a very real option and if we go on our own, they (government) will not provide us one dollar of funding,” Beddow said. “What that means to families is they (government) will not include any subsidized funding, which means all of our low-income families will no longer have space in our centres.”

Cutting off subsidized funding would also spell the end of inclusionary funding, “meaning children with special needs would no longer have the additional support that they’ve always had.”

Beddow said private operators have been given until March 18 to decide which option they will choose.

The provincial Progressive Conservative government and the federal government collaborated on an announcement late last week to provide a reduction in childcare fees ahead of the scheduled lower fees announced in July as part of the $605-million early learning and child-care agreement struck between the Nova Scotia and federal governments.

The initial agreement called for a 50 per cent reduction, on average, in fees by the end of this year but the provincial government announced Friday an early initial decrease of 25 per cent, on average, retroactive to Jan. 1, 2022, saving parents and caregivers an average of $200 a month for a toddler in child care.

Under the Canada-wide agreement, fees for regulated child care will drop to $10 a day, on average, by March 31, 2026.

“Licensed child-care centres that are funded by the government of Nova Scotia are being offered fee reductions of about 25 per cent to apply to the bill and the fees that they charge parents,” said Janet Lynn Huntington, executive director of early childhood development and pre-primary with the province’s Education Department.

“At this time, for-profit child-care operators are making decisions on which options to choose,” she said.

“If they decide that they want to choose an option where they don’t partner with the government and they don’t want government funding, then the government will not be providing funding to reduce those fees after April 1.”

Huntington said the province of Nova Scotia worked closely with the government of Canada to negotiate the opportunity for existing forprofit providers to join the Canada-wide system.

“We value the role of our for-profit providers and really know that they need to be part of the Canada-wide system,” Huntington said. “What we have offered them are options, depending on which option they choose, to be part of the Canada-wide system. We are really pleased to provide those options. They can become an approved Canada-wide service provider and if they choose that option, they can continue to be a business. They also have the option of transitioning to not-for-profit child care but the important point is that they have options available to them and they have the opportunity to be part of a once-in-a-generation opportunity.”

Beddow said choosing the third option of going it alone would force private childcare operators to increase parent fees significantly, “up to $10 to $20 more a day, so a family that pays $40 a day now would be forced to pay $60 a day.”

The extra $20 would be needed to allow private operators to remain competitive with the increased staff wages government will provide across the province.

“Instead of this glorified $10 a day, we would have the majority of the spaces in this province now paying $60 a day,” Beddow said.

Beddow said the for-profit operators being pressured by government are predominantly women, many of whom started their childcare businesses 20, 30 or 40 years ago.

“The mandate of the government was to get females back to work,” she said. “This is actually doing the opposite. This is going to make child care so expensive and not affordable, women will not be able to afford to go back to work. They’ll have to stay home because they cannot afford child care.”

And if for-profit centres go out of business, there will not be enough public-funded spaces available, she said.

“The $10 a day is only good if there is somewhere for the children to go.”

Beddow said operators were provided scant details, no formulas and no valuations about accepting the first option and they want more information.

“We are being forced to sign by March 18, but we have all agreed, we are not signing anything.”

Huntington said the Canada-wide agreements offer all child-care providers a long-term funding commitment and she hopes the for-profits take advantage of that offer.

“The days of patch-work agreements and funding here and funding there are over,” Huntington said. “We are moving to a new system, a transformational system with a commitment for long-term funding and that’s applicable to for-profit child-care operators.”

Huntington said for-profit operators are being offered the opportunity to be part of a Canada-wide system “to access government funding to reduce fees for parents, support wages for early childhood educators and to increase access for children with inclusive needs.”