Records show government did not consult with experts before announcing their pre-primary care plan.
Nova Scotia’s NDP submitted a freedom of information request for any evidence Liberals spoke with private day cares prior to coming up with their plan to care for 4 year olds in school.
The NDP’s education critic Claudia Chender says that’s not the way to form effective education policy.
“I happen to know that they have a lot of brilliant folks and great information in that department that they could avail themselves of. There have been pilot programs, there’s information. As far as we can tell, they’re not really paying attention to any of that stuff.”
Chender says this is nothing new from the McNeil Liberals.
“It’s part of a pattern, I would say of acting first, and consulting later. Then, of course, in the last mandate we saw it with the film tax, we saw it with senior’s pharmacare, and we’ve certainly seen it in the education system.”
Chender is concerned unforeseen problems could arise that could reduce the number of available child care spaces in the province.
She says there isn’t a large number of unemployed qualified child care workers in the province and she worries government will draw them from existing day cares, and the kids who need them.
Meanwhile, Education and Early Childhood Development Minister Zach Churchill says his party checked in with the people of Nova Scotia.
“We went through one of the biggest consultations any party could have and that’s an election. Where Nova Scotians voted for us to execute on this program. So we are going to do that.”
Churchill says child care providers are registered, and the province didn’t want to waste time getting the program up and running.
“They are all subsidized by government, so we do know where all of them are. We worked with our school boards to identify areas, communities, where these services currently aren’t being provided or where there was a high need, based on what the school board was telling us.”
Churchill says consultations are planned with Early Childhood Educators and parents across the province to lessen the impact on private day cares.
He says a consultant is being hired to lead the discussions, which should begin this fall.
Churchill says over 770 parents have registered their children for pre-primary programs, scheduled to open at the end of September.
The Education Minister says government made a promise in the last election campaign to deliver pre-primary service and they plan to keep their word.
