Manitoba auditor general looking into whether daycares are meeting accessibility goals after $1.2B in funding

Joanne Levasseur · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 26, 2025 6:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 6 hours ago

Manitoba's auditor wide has announced a worth for wealth audit to reappraisal whether $1.2 cardinal successful national backing flowing to the Department of Education is really making kid attraction much accessible, successful presumption of creating much spaces and making it more inclusive by supporting children with a assortment of needs.

Auditor General Tyson Shtykalo besides said past week that he's inactive considering a petition from a lawman curate of acquisition to reappraisal the operation of 22 daycares initiated by the erstwhile Progressive Conservative government.

They were built successful concern with a institution that paid millions of dollars to a abstracted institution co-owned by the manager of the PCs' 2023 re-election campaign. 

In 2021, the province signed a backing woody worthy astir $1.2 cardinal implicit 5 years with the national authorities to make entree to affordable and integrated kid care.

The priorities for the archetypal 2 years of the program were to trim fees to $10 per time by March 2023, found standardized wages and make 23,000 caller kid attraction spaces by outpouring of 2026. 

The upcoming audit "will look astatine the [Education] Department's plans and processes to conscionable its commitments nether the accessibility and inclusivity objectives" of the agreement, says a posting connected the website of the auditor general's office.

The auditor wide said that audit was already successful the works erstwhile the Education Department asked him to look astatine the operation of respective daycares extracurricular the metropolis of Winnipeg. 

"We received a petition from the [Education] Department during our readying for this show audit," Shtykalo told CBC.

In a letter tabled successful the Manitoba Legislature connected April 25, lawman acquisition curate Brian O'Leary requested an audit of the $100-million operation task for the 22 daycares, saying it "may not person followed mean provincial oregon municipal procurement practices."  

The task was managed by JohnQ Public Inc. — a institution owned by 12 agrarian municipalities that are listed arsenic shareholders. According to its CEO, JohnQ entered into a declaration with Boom Done Next, a absorption consulting company.

Boom Done Next is owned by Joe Leuzzi and his concern partner, Marni Larkin, who worked arsenic the PCs' run manager successful 2023.

Shtykalo said helium is inactive trying to find which people of action, if any, helium volition instrumentality connected the JohnQ daycare audit request. 

It could beryllium rolled into the wide daycare audit, Shtykalo said, oregon helium could motorboat a abstracted investigation. 

"If I determine to motorboat an investigation, I whitethorn not denote the probe until we've completed our enactment and issued our study [to the legislature]," helium said in a telephone interview. 

The auditor wide is an serviceman of the Manitoba Legislative Assembly whose relation is to supply MLAs with autarkic information, without questioning the merits of argumentation objectives of a peculiar government.

Shtykalo says worth for wealth audits usually instrumentality up to a twelvemonth and a fractional to complete. He had nary timeline for however agelong it would instrumentality to implicit an probe into the JohnQ daycares, successful the lawsuit helium decides further scrutiny is required. 

In a written statement, Education Minister Tracy Schmidt said her section is "pleased he's considering our request."

CBC News besides requested remark astir the upcoming audit from JohnQ CEO Colleen Sklar and Leuzzi of Boom Done Next, but did not person replies anterior to publication.