Alberta is failing to meet its own child-care inspection guidelines, documents show

At a time when Canada is vastly expanding its child-care system, and just eight months after a major E. coli outbreak in Calgary child-care centres, an Alberta Health Services analysis shows the province is lagging in its rate of daycare inspections, falling far short of its guideline of at least two inspections per year at each of the province's licensed daycare centres.  

The report, titled Safe Healthy Environments - Childcare Inspection Analysis and obtained under freedom of information, is worrying to the mother of a child hospitalized during last year's outbreak and concerning to public health experts who say the lag in inspection rates is putting kids at risk. 

It shows 354 licensed daycares with food facilities did not see an inspection in the twelve months before March 18, 2024. That's just over 20 per cent of Alberta daycares with food services.

Of the 1,315 that were inspected, more than 40 per cent were cited for food handling or hygiene violations. The analysis was prepared by AHS Environmental Public Health and covers the dates from April 1, 2022, to March 18, 2024.

The most common violations were food handling, cleaning and sanitation. The report notes that 97.4 per cent of child-care centres have a kitchen on site, while about 50 facilities obtain their food from a central kitchen. 

"This is pretty bad inspection rates considering the sort of high-risk populations," said Keith Warriner, a professor of food microbiology at University of Guelph. He was particularly troubled by the rate of non-compliance, which often resulted in multiple follow-up inspections to correct problems.

Repeated critical food handling and sanitation violations at 145 facilities accounted for multiple health inspectors visits, according to the analysis. 

"This tells me a lot of resources are dedicated to try and clean up messes which shouldn't have occurred and letting facilities get away with things before making the ultimate decision to shut them down," Warriner said.

While the province mandates two inspections per licensed daycare, AHS said in a statement to CBC News that it is still working toward meeting a minimum of one routine monitoring inspection of every childcare facility in Alberta, every 12 months.

The review period includes last September's E. coli outbreak in Calgary, which sickened 448 people and hospitalized 39 children and one adult. 

The source of the illness was traced to a central kitchen supplying food to multiple daycare centres.

A review panel looking into the incident was expected to report its findings in April but has now been granted an extension by the government until the end of June to give the group more time to talk to parents. 

Sarah MacDonald, whose four-year-old son was hospitalized because of the E. coli outbreak, is troubled by the findings in the report. 

"I have difficulty understanding why the safety of our children is not a priority," she said in an interview with CBC News.