HALIFAX: The Minister for Education and Early Childhood development is encouraging the owners of Fall River Child Care Centre to continue working with them.
Becky Druhan’s comments come after approximately 10 parents who have children under three that attend the centre went to the department’s Brunswick Street offices on Nov. 8 where they had requested a meeting with her and other officials. No one met with them, and they left after about four hours.
“We’ve been in touch with that particular operator, and we encourage them to continue working with us,” Druhan said in a Nov. 9 interview. “We have resources available for all the for-profit operators, including that particular operator.
“If they’re interested in looking at business or legal advice, we have support available for them to access that. What we hope is that they continue to work collaboratively with us as we all move forward to this exciting new development for childcare in Nova Scotia.”
That “exciting” new development Druhan mentions is the Canada-wide child-care plan, which she says the province is currently reviewing. The $605 million agreement was signed before the two elections were called in the summer between the feds and the province, then under Liberal governance led by then Premier Iain Rankin.
It would result in $10-a-day childcare across N.S. in five years, by 2026. There is no word on when issuing licenses will return.
Druhan was asked how an agreement for 2026 impacts childcare now in the community. She said they know there is the availability of childcare in the Fall River area right now and encouraged families to reach out to the department.
“If there are any families out there who are concerned or worried about accessing childcare, we encourage them to reach out to the department. We have staff available,” she said. “We want to work with parents to understand their needs, the age of the child, where they live, where they work and match them with care providers.
“There are care providers right now in the Fall River area that we can work to match families with.”
According to a department spokesperson, those providers are located as follows: one is within five kilometres of Fall River Child Care Centre; and six centres within 10 kilometres with available toddler spaces. In addition, there are several day homes with available toddler spaces.
The parents had learned that they had no childcare available for their children aged 18 months to three-years-old at the Fall River Road childcare business on Sunday morning Nov. 7. The reason was because the province had denied a license for that age group, saying they were not issuing any new ones for six months.
It means that owners Lindsay Awalt and Molly Rogers’ business lost 85 per cent of its enrollment and will likely face closure in a week or two if nothing is done from the province. They want to modify their license and had the process started in May to do so. That would have allowed them to care for those under three.
Druhan said she can’t speak to why the centre decided to proceed without a license but offered assistance to families that had registered for spaces there in the 18 months to three-year-old age group.
“To those families who were hoping for spaces or looking for spaces if they haven’t already had conversations with the department, I hope that they’ll reach out so that we can help them,” said Druhan.
She was asked why department staff told Awalt and Rogers to wait on submitting their funding termination agreement until after the October 15 memo came out notifying them of the six month pause on licensing.
Druhan was unaware of that communication happening.
She said the province is working with all of the child-care centres.
“We’ve been encouraging them to collaborate with us as we transition to the new universal childcare system,” she said. “We’ve been in touch with all of the providers about what that looks like.”
Druhan was asked if a temporary license would work. Druhan said licensing is something they take seriously.
“We follow all of the procedures when we’re issuing licenses with respect to families who may be looking for child care or needing childcare,” she said. “We do not need at this moment to license spaces to provide access to childcare.
“We have spaces that we can match families up with.”
