Nova Scotia announces more expansion of not-for-profit child care
Updated July 8, 2025
Child Care advocates welcome the Nova Scotia government’s recent announcements that three new not-for-profit child care centres will be built in partnership with public institutions. Two further child care centres will be built and operated by not-for-profit operators.
This brings the total number of major infrastructure projects funded by the province to 14 under the province’s Major Infrastructure Program grant, announced in May 2024. Eligible operators were able to apply for funding of up to $1.5 million, or $20,000 per space for leasehold/rental properties, and up to $3.5 million, or $40,000 per space, for owned/public properties.
Partnerships with public institutions
Two of the successful projects are in partnership with public post-secondary institutions – St Francis Xavier University, and Cape Breton University (CBU) campus. A third project is in collaboration with the province’s public French school board, the Conseil scolaire acadien provincial.
The centre on St. Francis Xavier (StFX) campus will create 104 new spaces through a project that will require the university to remove an existing building to make space for the new facility.
The centre at Cape Breton University (CBU) is a partnership between the Province and CBU. It will be built on university property behind the new medical school and will expand the number of spaces on campus from 25 to 104.
The francophone centre will be operated by the Centre d’appui à la petite enfance de la Nouvelle-Écosse, and located on the property of École acadienne de Pomquet. The province is providing $3.5 million to create 40 new child care spaces for infants, toddlers and preschoolers.
In Auburn in Kings county the province is providing $2.5 million to the Nova Scotia College of Early Childhood Education, a private non-profit career college, to purchase and expand the Stepping Stone Preschool and Childcare Centre. The College is adding 42 new spaces for infants, toddlers and preschoolers.
The fifth project is located in the Lake Charlotte area and will be operated by the YMCA of Greater Halifax/Dartmouth. The $1.9 million grant will support the creation of a 72 space centre.
Child Care Now congratulates Nova Scotia’s success in not-for-profit expansion
Morna Ballantyne, Executive Director of Child Care Now, congratulated the province on its commitment to expand the supply of not-for-profit early learning and child care programs.
“The Nova Scotia’s five-year funding agreement with the Government of Canada signed in 2021 stated that all new federally funded child care programs would be built and operated by not-for-profit or public organizations and this approach has been very successful in putting in place child care where it is needed most,” Ballantyne said. “The not-for-profit child care sector has responded very favourably to the calls from government to put in place additional child care spaces and, in fact, I’ve been told that there have been more expansion proposals from the non-profit sector than the province’s budget can fund.”
Ballantyne added that the success of the province’s non-profit expansion program has been so great that it makes no sense for the provincial government to continue to ask the federal government to fund for-profit expansion.
“The NS government has asked the federal government to allow the for-profit sector to grow under the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care program but moving in this direction goes against the federal government’s 2021 commitment to build a primarily non-profit system of child care,” Ballantyne said.
With nearly 7000 new spaces created since 2021, the Nova Scotia government is nearing its target of 9,500 new spaces by the end of 2026.