Nipissing social services board chair wants grant program expanded

The chair of the social services board in the District of Nipissing is lobbying the provincial government to expand its Learn and Stay grant program to include early childhood education students.

Following talks with two Ontario cabinet ministers at the Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA) conference in Toronto, District of Nipissing Social Services Administration Board chair Mark King wants to see childcare agencies hire qualified staff more quickly.

“We don’t have the trained people inside the system to look after the shortfall,” King said Wednesday afternoon.

He said there are more than 1,400 children on the waitlist for childcare in the district and there’s a need for 140 child care workers.

“That’s sad because if we had more people that were trained to make this work, there’d be a lot of probably very happy families,” King added.

The social services board is asking the Ford government to launch a pilot project for early childcare education students eligible through the Learn and Stay grant.

That would mean the province would cover the cost of their tuition, books and supplies if they agree to study and work in underserved Ontario communities.

It already does this for paramedic, nursing and medical lab tech students.

In a statement to CTV News, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security wrote that there aren’t any “current plans to expand (the grant) beyond health-care post-secondary programs.”

The province also recently added the medical lab technician program at Canadore College under its Learn and Stay Grant and will start welcoming students this fall.

“Through the Ontario Learn and Stay Grant, our government is bringing highly skilled health-care workers to communities and families that need them most,” said Nolan Quinn, Minister of Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security.

Canadore College president George Burton said he supports expanding the grant program as a way of addressing the “acute shortage of ECE graduates across northern Ontario.”

“Canadore and the Nipissing District Social Services Administration Board have been advocating for this approach to help ensure access to adequate child care, an essential factor in enabling parents and caregivers to participate fully in the workforce,” Burton wrote.

Since the program’s launch in 2023, the government has spent more than $171 million to support 12,700 students across the province.

That includes more than $53 million in northern Ontario to train more than 3,800 health-care workers.