$5.5M daycare built with provincial funds still not open because government can't figure out who owns the land
CBC
A Winnipeg-area daycare built with $5.5 million worth of provincial funds has yet to care for a single child, because the NDP government says it can't figure out who owns the land.
A 74-space daycare built in the rural municipality of East St. Paul, just north of Winnipeg, on behalf of the Peguis First Nation Real Estate Trust in 2024 has yet to open its doors.
The structure sat vacant throughout 2025, even though the daycare operator waiting to use the building has 600 kids on its waiting list. It also went months without Manitoba Hydro service, as the media outlet Terra Indigena first reported.
"We have a fantastic facility that is built. We want to get in to get the child-care spaces open for the community," said Patrick Ryan, the volunteer board chair for Created 4 Me Early Learning Centre.
"It's such a tragedy for the community here that we don't have the extra spaces."
Planning and municipal documents, as well as a purchase agreement obtained by CBC News, suggest the daycare sits on land controlled by Peguis First Nation Real Estate Trust.
Education and Early Childhood Learning Minister Tracy Schmidt, however, said she is not sure about that.
"Right now, there is some uncertainty or some lack of clarity for the province about who owns that land," Schmidt said in an interview in her office. "So we are working on our due diligence."
The East St. Paul daycare was one of 22 built in Manitoba as part of a project started by the former Progressive Conservative government along with JohnQ Public, a company owned by 11 Manitoba municipalities.
The province paid out $3.3 million of the $5.5 million budgeted for the daycare before funding for the project stopped flowing in November 2024, according to the province.
Brian O'Leary, the former deputy minister of education and early childhood learning, said the project may not have followed normal provincial or municipal procurement practices, according to an April 16, 2025, letter tabled in the Manitoba Legislature.
The daycare was built for Peguis First Nation Real Estate Trust, an arm's-length entity formed by Manitoba's most populous First Nation to acquire real estate for investment and housing for the benefit of band members, according to its founding documents.
The daycare is built on part of a former golf course east of Highway 59 called The Meadows, which the Peguis real estate trust purchased in 2021. The placement of the daycare on land situated more than 150 kilometres south of the First Nation's main reserve has led some band members to criticize the location.
In 2024, the Peguis real estate trust sold 75 per cent of a company that controls the Meadows land to a numbered company owned by Andrew Marquess, a former adviser to the real estate trust, according to a purchase and development agreement obtained by CBC News.
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