The MRC Pontiac held a public meeting on Feb. 26 to discuss the state of daycare services in the area after several parents expressed concerns about difficulties finding their children day spots.

The meeting was held in person at the MRC office in Campbell’s Bay and over Zoom and was presided over by Warden Jane Toller and Pontiac MNA André Fortin.

Fortin started off the meeting by explaining the current situation with childcare in the Pontiac.

“As of Dec. 31 2022 there are 327 daycare spots; 171 are in home daycares and 156 that are CPEs (public providers),” Fortin said. “There are also 71 spots that are being developed right now.”

Fortin explained that of these 71 new daycare spots, 60 would be allocated to Shawville, 6 would be added to Mansfield-Et-Pontefract and 5 would be added to Campbell’s Bay.

The new spots in Campbell’s Bay and Mansfield will be extensions on their preexisting capacities and are in the process of being approved and built, while the 60 in Shawville will be in the form of a new prefab building expected to be completed in the fall, according to Fortin.

Fortin explained that if parents wanted to signal to the government that the 71 new spots in addition to the 327 preexisting spots for the MRC isn’t enough, they need to sign their kids up to the waitlist to show that the demand is there, regardless if they have help from their family or personal network.

“I’m sure some people just A: give up or B: find alternative plans and stick with them,” Fortin said. “But if they don’t see actual children on the waiting list they’re not going to allocate spots here.”

Fortin added that another issue with daycare in the region is that Quyon and Luskville are also under-served and therefore parents there will be looking to send their kids to the new spots in Shawville despite being in the MRC des Collines.

“The government looks at MRCs as closed-in spaces but it doesn’t always work that way,” Fortin said.

Lack of childcare within a reasonable distance of where parents live and work was a concern echoed multiple times in the meeting.

“I just know from personal experience, it’s badly needed because, with even my own grandson, it’s a 25-minute drive in the morning to take him where he goes,” said Mayor Bill McCleary of Shawville, who was attending the meeting.

Meeting attendees also expressed the need to expand daycare services to parents who don’t work traditional nine-to-five hours, like healthcare workers.

Toller responded by suggesting public spaces like the Pontiac Hospital, ESSC, and CAP could host an on site daycare for employers and the broader public with flexible hours.

Fortin agreed that while something like that needs to happen, it is not on the government’s radar, and as of now, they are just focusing on filling a 30,000 daycare spot gap that exists in the province.

Lack of childcare providers for CPEs

Mona Donnelly, general manager of the Bambinos Universe Early Childhood Centers in Luskville and Shawville, which are CPEs in the region, was also in attendance at the meeting. She explained the difficulties faced by these quasi-government daycares.

“The problem is not the capacity, the problem is the employees. I don’t have the manpower,” Donnelly said. “It’s unfortunate because we have the facility, we have the space to have more spots, you don’t have to do any architectural work or any changes, but we just don’t have the manpower.”

Both Donnelly and Fortin said most trained childcare workers are going into the school system due to better salaries and conditions, leaving a lack of qualified people to work in the CPEs.

Aside from improving working conditions at CPEs, Donnelly also suggested that Heritage College should be encouraged to offer an early childhood education program again to increase the number of potential recruits.

Fortin responded that he could see Heritage reoffering the program if the demand from students became apparent.

“What we’re learning tonight is that we need to be really proactive with this,” Toller said. “Not only with figuring out where the daycares are needed but also have people who will be employed in the daycares. And I think the government would be very happy to see that we’re mobilizing ourselves, making a plan and deciding to get this course back in Heritage College because then we would have a made-in-the-Pontiac solution.”

Toller promised to host another, better-publicized meeting in the coming months in hopes of adding to the proposals coming from the MRC.

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