EDMONTON — Four Alberta NDP MLAs have called on Alberta's Education and Childcare ministry to take charge and lead a notification system for when allegations of abuse at childcare centres arise, in one of three directives made on Wednesday. "Nothing matters more to parents than their child's safety," said Shadow Minister for Child and Family Services Diana Batten in a press conference. "It is essential that they get the critical information they need when situations like this arise.""Not having that information or receiving that information in a timely manner is a failure of government and the current structure in place.".Their calls stemmed from numerous reports of child abuse happening in Alberta childcare facilities, including an incident at Edmonton's Willowbrae Academy Mill Creek that occurred between January, 2025 and May of that year. The Willowbrea Academy incident was reported to the Childcare ministry on June 18 by the centre, but it took until Aug. 22 for parents and children at the centre to be notified. "It took 82 days for a disclosure of an incident to be pinned to a bulletin board, which supposedly served as sufficient notice to parents," said Edmonton-Gold Bar MLA Marlon Schmidt. "Let me be clear that our issue is with the law as it exists right now. The child care operator seemed to have followed all of the rules. "The status quo is leaving parents in the dark about serious abuse incidents by placing all of the onus on the child care operators to notify and report these kinds of incidents. It's the minister's job to keep children safe and to maintain parents' trust in the child care system."Schmidt raised this issue with Education and Childcare Demetrios Nicolaides during Question Period in November, but he claims the minister has done nothing since then. "I don't have any trouble creating some more requirements to enhance transparency," said Nicolaides to reporters on Wednesday. "Parents should be fully informed, and so that's why I've asked my department to take a look and see if there's more that we can do.".The NDP also called for the province to create a public online portal showcasing each childcare centre's history, including incidents, inspection reports, visit summaries, and orders to fix problems. "When you search it online, there is vagueness and generalities when parents need clear, concise information about the history of the facility," said Edmonton-Mill Woods MLA Christina Gray. "Not knowing if there have been incidents of abuse at a child care program severely impacts a parent's ability to make a fully formed decision, to ask questions and to feel confident in the system." According to the NDP, they are not raising the issue to cause panic because the vast majority of Alberta's childcare facilities are in good standing, but they want to ensure the safety of parents and children by making sure they are aware of those that are not."I would like to say that the majority of child care providers in our province are wonderful," said Edmonton-Manning MLA Heather Sweet. "They care for our children like they are their own. They meet or exceed our hard quality and safety standards.""However, when a program fails to meet these standards, parents need to know.".Their third call was for the provincial government to require regular reviews of the Early Learning and Childcare Act."This will ensure that all gaps are caught early, problems are fixed and new risks are addressed before more children are put at risk," Batten said.According to Schmidt, these three called for action directly from the parents at Willowbrea Academy, whom he claims have approached Nicolaides about these issues, but have been dismissed. "The minister keeps dragging his feet, and parents are rightly frustrated that these simple, straightforward solutions that they continue to propose are just not being adopted by the minister," Schmidt said. "I don't know what else he needs to see the wisdom of these solutions and implement them."Nicolaides told reporters on Wednesday that he and his department are looking into ways to address the Willowbrea Academy parents' concerns, but it can not happen overnight. "It'll take some time to take a close look at the legislation, the accompanying regulations, develop, if necessary, legislative changes," Nicolaides said. "You know that work takes time." "I think the important thing is to recognize that we are paying close attention to this, and I'm very interested to see what there is that we can do to strengthen parental notification."
