Newfoundland and Labrador names 12-member child care advisory panel

Newfoundland and Labrador is establishing a Child Care Advisory Panel of child care operators to advise the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development on improving and expanding services, the provincial government said in a release dated Oct. 19. The panel will give the department insights, concerns and recommendations drawn from the experience of people working in the sector.¹

The department reviewed 115 responses to an expression of interest issued in June and chose 12 members it says represent diverse perspectives from all regions of the province. The panel mixes rural and urban views and includes early childhood educators, administrators and licensees from both child care centres and family homes, the government said.¹

The government said the initial process did not produce an Indigenous representative who met the established criteria. To support the inclusive representation identified in the original expression of interest, it will issue a focused expression of interest seeking Indigenous representation.¹

The backgrounder lists the members by name, setting type and region: Natasha Mercer of Funtime child care centre, Crystal Buckle of Labrador West Child Care, Karina Lamontagne of Centre de la Petite Enfance et Famille (Les P’tits Cerfs-Volants), Megan Keeping of YMCA of western NL, Corina Sascha Davis of YMCA, Sherry Cull of New Fun Land Limited, Natasha Reid of Meadow View, Shannon Ramos of Clarenville Daycare, Lori Dalton of Lilypad Childcare Centre and Andrea Blair of ELJ Holdings, all centre-based, plus family child care providers Victoria Stuckless of Rowan Tree Child Care and Alicia Scott of Toddler Town.¹

The regions named in the backgrounder are Eastern, Labrador, Western, Central and Provincial. The government said the panel will support high-quality, inclusive, diverse, affordable and accessible child care in the province.¹

This is an exciting next step for improving child care services in our province. This panel consists of early childhood education operators who will help identify challenges in the system and offer feasible solutions to benefit children, early childhood educators and operators.¹Paul Dinn, minister of Education and Early Childhood Development

Dinn said operators see the access problems families face and hold solutions the department can use. “Their input will help inform next steps in our plan to increase access to affordable child care for families,” the minister said in the release.¹

The panel is separate from an early childhood educator steering committee that the government says is helping guide next steps toward introducing pensions and benefits for early childhood educators in the province. The release gives no timeline for either body's recommendations.¹

More than 470 child care spaces have opened across the province since October 2025, according to the release. Budget 2026 invests close to $33 million to support child care spaces, which the government says includes approximately 1,200 spaces in progress and the creation of an additional 400 new spaces.¹

The release does not say when the panel will first meet, how often it will report or whether its advice will be made public. It also does not give a date for the focused expression of interest on Indigenous representation.¹