Manitoba’s minister for early childhood learning says the province is “open to transparency” but won’t commit to making child-care centre inspection reports public.
A recent Free Press investigation revealed Manitoba is falling behind other provinces when it comes to sharing information about inspections of child-care centres. In other jurisdictions, details about what inspectors found are made public, along with what facilities are doing to rectify issues, and when and why inspections took place.
None of this information is shared in Manitoba, leaving parents essentially in the dark.
Instead, centre licensing information posted by the province online only includes brief notes written in regulatory jargon. In some cases, it is unclear what is an infraction and what is a standard condition of operation. A 2013 report from the Office of the Auditor General of Manitoba recommended the province improve licensing clarity and transparency. To date, that hasn’t happened.
“We’ve got work to do,” Nello Altomare, Minister of Education and Early Childhood Learning, said this week in his first sit-down interview since the six-part series ran last month. “We’re open to transparency but these are pieces that will be tackled in a very systematic fashion. It’s something that we see as important.”
JOHN WOODS / FREE PRESS FILES
A recent Free Press investigation revealed Manitoba is falling behind other provinces when it comes to sharing information about inspections of child-care centres, essentially, leaving local parents in the dark.
JOHN WOODS / FREE PRESS Daycare photographed Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Reporter: ?
Asked if any concrete changes are coming to make more information public, Altomare said the province’s focus is on getting more trained staff working at centres, something child-care experts have long called for.
He said parents can request inspection reports from individual centres, though a provincial spokesperson later stated facilities are only encouraged to share those reports, but it’s not required.
Advocates and experts, including the Manitoba Child Care Association, have said the reports should be made public, along with information about what steps each centre is taking to address issues that were flagged.
Altomare also addressed the Free Press’s March analysis showing one third of the province’s child-care centres have a temporary “provisional” licence. These licences are typically issued in cases where a centre isn’t meeting minimum health, safety or operating standards, or sometimes for other reasons, such as a facility being newly opened.
He said he was “not at all” concerned one third have temporary licences, adding the reason many aren’t meeting targets is because Manitoba has legislated high standards.
“Manitoba has some of the highest standards when it comes to ratios of trained professionals to children,” he said. “We require two thirds of the people working in centres to be trained ECEs (early childhood educators). Many other provinces, they’re at half.”
The Free Press’s analysis showed about 150 of the province’s 383 centres with provisional licences were not meeting minimum qualified staffing requirements. The province has approximately 1,100 licensed facilities.
Experts question how valuable the “highest standards” are when they aren’t being met. Some argue the standards should be higher still.
Martha Friendly, executive director of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit, based in Toronto, acknowledged Manitoba has higher ratio requirements than other provinces, making it easier to fill positions elsewhere. But Friendly added provinces across the country are “not aiming very high.”
“Comparing ECE requirements for staff anywhere in Canada with international standards, Canada is quite low,” she said.
Susan Prentice, a sociology professor at the University of Manitoba who specializes in child-care policy, agrees.
BROOK JONES / FREE PRESS
U of M Prof. Susan Prentice says Manitoba needs to aspire to the high child-care standards established in Nordic countries.
“One day soon, I expect we will understand that all educators working with young children should have specialized training, including some with graduate level qualifications — for example, Master’s degrees — as is common in Nordic countries,” she said, noting Manitoba’s regulations require only 66 per cent trained educators with preschool children, and 50 per cent for school age.
“I would say our current regulations are minimal,” she said. “They should be always met and one day soon, should be improved and strengthened.”
Altomare said his government wants to work with child-care centres to get them fully licensed.
“I’m not satisfied with where we’re at but I am optimistic for where we’re headed,” he said.
The province’s poor recordkeeping was another issue raised in the Free Press’s series.
While licensing reports were move from paper to “electronic” in 2023, this only means the files are kept as PDFs, not in a central database where the province could efficiently analyze trends. This came to light after the Free Press filed freedom of information requests for inspection reports, only to be told it would take thousands of hours to compile records.
Critics have slammed the province for its “archaic” recordkeeping systems, saying a lack of centralization prevents the government — and the public — from knowing the full extent of issues and trends in the child-care sector.
The Free Press’s analysis found nine centres with infractions relating to child abuse reporting, 10 missing criminal record checks and 42 lacking current first aid or CPR training certification. No further details about the infractions are provided.
A civil servant speaking on background confirmed there are plans in the works to modernize IT systems, but Altomare did not have additional information.
katrina.clarke@freepress.mb.ca
Katrina Clarke
Investigative reporter
Katrina Clarke is an investigative reporter at the Winnipeg Free Press. Katrina holds a bachelor’s degree in politics from Queen’s University and a master’s degree in journalism from Western University. She has worked at newspapers across Canada, including the National Post and the Toronto Star. She joined the Free Press in 2022. Read more about Katrina.
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