Daycare is where Sebastian Maynard learns and plays. The 20-month-old toddler living with Down syndrome can’t walk. He frequently sees a physio-therapist, a speech therapist and a developmental worker.

His mother, Catie Maynard, said she will likely have to pull him out of daycare because he doesn’t qualify for one-on-one support through the Manitoba Early Learning and Child Care Inclusion Support Program.

“We were told he didn’t qualify for a support worker due to not being aggressive, which was frustrating for me to hear.” Maynard said.

“Just because he’s not aggressive doesn’t mean he’s not entitled to learn the things that he needs to learn and have the help and support to do those things.”

The province budgeted $12.5 million this year—the same amount as last year—for the Inclusion Support Program, which hires extra staff to help children with special needs at child care facilities. According to the province, 1053 children in Manitoba benefit from it.

On Monday morning, Pat Wege, the Executive Director at the Manitoba Child Care Association, said programs and parents that were promised funding were told they wouldn’t receive it.

Wege said applications for the program aren’t being approved the way they used to be, and people are confused about what the requirements are, what the opportunities are and how it’s going to work going forward.

“The province has really changed the process on a dime,” Wege said, “And started to tell programs their funding has been used up for the entire fiscal year. There’s a lot of months left in the fiscal year so it really does leave everybody in the lurch.”

Scott Fielding, the Minister of Families, gave an update late Monday afternoon. He said he met with the premier, and the province wants to support all the pending applications that meet the criteria.

“There was applicants that had pending applications that will be supported,” said Fielding.

“So if you meet the criteria for it, we want to support that and we will be supporting that.”

Fielding said the first thing he did Monday was ask his staff to make sure the most critical and urgent cases were taken care of. The province is reviewing the program to make sure money is being stretched as far as it can.

Fielding said he is set to meet with Manitoba Child Care Association on Thursday to discuss the Inclusion Support Program and other childcare-related issues.