The Manitoba Association of Parent Councils is winding down operations due to funding challenges and a shortage of volunteers keen to advocate for caregivers of school-aged children.
“It’s sad to see it go,” Brenda Brazeau, the final executive director of the non-profit, said during an emotional interview Tuesday. “It’s kind of like having your child go off to college.”
Brazeau — the only full-time employee at MAPC — has been involved with parent advisory councils for decades, dating back to when the oldest of her six children, who is now 40, was in elementary school.
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“There are so many other non-profits competing for that dollar,” Brenda Brazeau said, referring to multiple failed attempts to secure funding from sources outside of the provincial government in the spring.
She took the helm of MAPC in 2019, three years after she began volunteering with the organization.
The charity’s volunteer-run board, the last iteration of which included only three individuals, voted to shut down MAPC at the end of the 2023-24 school year.
The “difficult decision” was made in light of challenges related to the complexity of parents’ issues — including but not limited to student mental health, vaping, bullying and violence in schools, on top of traditional fundraising questions — and recruiting volunteers, she said.
“There are so many other non-profits competing for that dollar,” Brazeau said, referring to multiple failed attempts to secure funding from sources outside of the provincial government in the spring.
On March 8, the executive director penned a letter to Manitoba Education to announce she would not be seeking a renewed government grant because of a perceived conflict of interest.
“We’ve had this in the back of our minds since COVID, since Bill 64,” she told the Free Press, adding numerous parents were criticizing the organization in recent years, questioning how it could possibly be an effective lobbyist if it was funded by the province.
MAPC mobilized parents in 2021 to challenge Bill 64, the controversial and ultimately failed attempt by former premier Brian Pallister’s Progressive Conservative government to replace elected school boards with a central authority.
Brazeau said the political activity resulted in government officials getting in touch to remind MAPC of its main funder.
More than three-quarters of its funding came from the province in the fiscal year that ended on March 31, 2022, according to the latest national charity data available via the Canada Revenue Agency.
Annual operating funding was about $106,900 between 2017-18 and 2021-22, save for a cutback of $12,500 amid widespread government austerity during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-21.
Brazeau has been slowly winding down operations in recent months, ranging from taking down the website to moving out of MAPC headquarters on Henderson Highway.
MAPC lost its charitable status on Sept. 7, according to records from the CRA that show the non-profit failed to file up to date information.
On Tuesday, Brazeau said she is in the process of filing all the paperwork required to formally shutter the organization that began as the Home and School and Parent-Teacher Federation of Manitoba in 1954.
Parent councils will be able to access MAPC resources via school divisions, she said, adding that she is optimistic about the province’s efforts to update its aging guide for families.
A spokesperson for Manitoba Education confirmed the department is upgrading its 2005 “school partnerships” document for parents.
Brazeau noted the Family Advocacy Network of Manitoba and Manitoba Advocate for Children and Youth are among the organizations that will continue to support parents after MAPC ceases to exist.
maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca
Maggie Macintosh
Education reporter
Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Free Press. Originally from Hamilton, Ont., Maggie was an intern at the Free Press twice while earning her degree at Ryerson’s School of Journalism (now Toronto Metropolitan University) before joining the newsroom as a reporter in 2019. Read more about Maggie.
Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative.
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