Nova ScotiaWhile recent child-care investments in Nova Scotia have been welcomed by many, some advocates warn the province risks undermining its progress by extending expansion funds to private daycares. Education minister says there’s a need for ‘small percentage’ of private operatorsCelina Aalders · CBC News · Posted: Oct 13, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 4 hours agoJanessa Williams is co-chair of the Nova Scotia Non-Profit Directors Association and executive director of Needham Early Learning Centre. (Mark Crosby/CBC)While recent child-care investments in Nova Scotia have been welcomed by many, some advocates warn the province risks undermining its progress by extending expansion funds to private daycares.Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development Brendan Maguire has recently indicated that allowing investment into the private daycare sector — along with additional money from the federal government — would be necessary to meet its goal of delivering $10-a-day child care on average by March 2026. “Once we work out the parameters around this with the federal government, there’ll be a small percentage [of private daycares] to help us achieve what we need for [child care] spaces,” Maguire told reporters during the fall sitting of the legislature. Nova Scotia Minister of Education Brendan Maguire takes questions earlier this month. (CBC)This would require renegotiating the 2021 Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement — a $605-million bilateral agreement with Ottawa that was signed between former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s government and the former Nova Scotia Liberal government in 2021. But the idea of channeling public funds toward private operations is something that the Nova Scotia Non-Profit Directors Association — a group that consists of about 30 to 40 daycare directors across the province — starkly opposes. “The Non-Profit Directors Association believes that child care is a public service, and not a business,” said co-chair Janessa Williams, who is also executive director of Needham Early Learning Centre in Halifax. This notion was reinforced in the initial agreement, which says that all federal funding given to Nova Scotia must be used to support the not-for-profit child-care sector. Williams emphasized that private daycare providers are currently crucial to Nova Scotia’s child-care system, but she said officials should keep their eyes on building a publicly funded system, similar to the public school system.A spokesperson for the provincial Department of Education declined an interview with CBC News on behalf of Maguire, but said in an email that the province remains committed to working with federal counterparts to achieve $10-a-day child care on average. “The 2021-26 agreement was signed by the previous [provincial] government shortly before an election, unfortunately having no avenue for private operators to access expansion funding,” said communications adviser Krista Higdon.”We are continuing to work with our federal partners on how private child care operators can be eligible for expansion under the [bilateral agreement].”The provincial government has asked Ottawa to reconsider allowing expansion funds into the private sector before, but this request was denied under the previous federal government. Higdon added that the province “did receive a commitment from [the current federal government] as part of the development of the action plan for the 2027-2031 agreement,” referring to a five-year extension to the child-care agreements implemented by Trudeau shortly before leaving office. But on Friday, spokesperson Saskia Rodenburg with the federal Department of Employment and Social Development told CBC in an email that “negotiations with Nova Scotia on a new Canada-wide ELCC agreement have not occurred.”Rodenburg added in part that the federal government “maintains regular and open lines of communication with all provincial and territorial governments to better understand their needs and challenges.”Child Care Now Nova Scotia, another advocacy group, believes funding private daycare operators would be a “mistake.” “I think we have a lot of really positive things going on and we should focus on those, and stick to our commitments in the Canada-wide agreement,” said Tammy Findlay, a member of the organization’s steering committee. Tammy Findlay is a member of the Child Care Now Nova Scotia steering committee. (Paul Poirier/CBC)Findlay argues there’s more stability for families within the non-profit sector compared to private daycares, which can ultimately close at any given time, for any reason. “A child doesn’t go to school and find out that their principal has retired and so there’s no school anymore, right? That happens in for-profit centres.” she said. “People have a right to retire, but a for-profit centre could just close without much warning. We’ve seen many cases of that in the province, and so parents need to have services that they can rely on, and we need to have services that will be in existence over generations.” Findlay and Williams also believe that it’s easier to ensure quality child care is provided within the non-profit sector.“We know there’s lots of research that shows that the quality in not-for-profit centres is higher. The working conditions and wages for the early childhood development experts in those fields is better,” said Findlay. She also pointed to Nordic countries, many of which have long invested in child care as a public service, and treat access to daycare as a basic right.Provincial expansion grantsUnder the current bilateral agreement, Nova Scotia must create 9,500 new daycare spaces by March 2026, and has said it’s on track to do so with 7,363 spots created so far. In an effort to meet this goal, the province has created three grant programs for not-for-profit providers to build or expand child-care facilities. Williams has made use of these programs to expand her daycare, but a recent application to grow even further was denied due to a “significant number of applications, with total funding requests far exceeding the funding we have available for this initiative,” said a letter from the Department of Education. She said this shows that there is huge appetite among the non-profit sector to create more child-care spaces, underlining her point that there’s no need to extend funding to for-profit operators.MORE TOP STORIESABOUT THE AUTHORCelina is a TV, radio and web reporter with CBC Nova Scotia. She holds a master’s degree in journalism and communication. Story ideas are always welcomed at celina.aalders@cbc.ca
N.S. child-care advocates warn against public funding for private daycare expansions
