The provincial government is committing an additional $200 million to its child-care system, bringing total funding for early learning and child-care programs to over $1 billion.
This comes on top of the $876.3 million from the federal government, announced on March 6.
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Early Childhood Development Minister Claire Johnson said this funding will subsidize more than 17,000 child-care spaces, including some that have been allocated but are not yet open.
“We want to do both—support existing spaces and create new ones because we know we’ve got a long waitlist,” she said.
Johnson pointed out that to tackle the long waitlist for families, the province must hire around 1,000 new early childhood educators.
The $200 million from the province will be spread out over five years to extend three important child-care agreements with the federal government.
“This funding helps us tackle affordability, increase access, and support the workforce that makes child care possible,” Johnson said.
One of these, the Canada-New Brunswick Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement, will now run until March 31, 2031.
These agreements aim to lower daily fees to $10 by 2026 and make sure resources are shared fairly between rural and urban areas, as well as among both anglophone and francophone communities.
The province is also working on improving pay and working conditions for early childhood educators.
From previous agreements, the turnover rate for educators dropped from 50 per cent to 26 per cent, according to a government release.
Officials said they hope this trend will keep going this way with the new funding.
