A Plan to Grow Our Economy and Make Life More Affordable, the government of Canada makes targeted and responsible investments to create good jobs, grow our economy, and build a Manitoba where nobody gets left behind.
Today the Minister of Northern Affairs, Minister for PrairiesCan, and Minister for CanNor, the Honourable Daniel Vandal, met with child care workers and children at Centre éducatif Le P'tit Paradis to highlight how Budget 2022 builds on historic investments for national child care, making life more affordable for families.
Child care is not just a social policy-it is an economic policy. Affordable, high-quality child care will grow our economy, allow more women to enter the workforce, and help give every Canadian child the best start in life.
Budget 2022 provides $625 million for an Early Learning and Child Care Infrastructure Fund. This funding will enable provinces and territories to make additional child care investments, including the building of new facilities.
In Budget 2021, the federal government made an historic investment of $30 billion over five years to build a Canada-wide early learning and child care system. In less than a year, it reached agreements with all 13 provinces and territories. By the end of 2022, child care fees will be reduced by an average of 50 per cent, and by 2025-26, child care fees will average $10-a-day for all regulated child care spaces, from coast-to-coast-to-coast.
The Government of Canada is providing Manitoba with more than $1.2 billion in federal funding over five years. This will support an average fee of $10 a day for regulated child care spaces in the province by March 2023 and a 50% reduction in fees by the end of this year, significantly reducing the cost of child care for families across the province.
In addition, the Government of Canada is providing nearly $98 million in funding over four years to strengthen Manitoba's regulated child care services and offer support for the recruitment and retention of the child care workforce. As part of that investment, $19.2 million was provided to Manitoba for a one-time early childhood workforce investment.
