The Governments of Canada and Saskatchewan have signed a three-year agreement focused on improving early learning and child care in the province.

The province is set to receive $41 million through the agreement. It plans to invest in 1,500 new group and family child care home spaces and 1,015 new licensed child care centre spaces. The new spaces are in addition to the about 16,000 licensed child care spaces in Saskatchewan.

"This is exciting news for our early learning sector. We've been waiting a long time for the bilateral agreement and we're all very excited to see what's going to come in the next few months,” said Sheila Pelletier, executive director of Awasis Child Care Centres.

The money will also be used to improve accessibility, inclusivity and quality in early learning and child care.

"We want, ultimately, a system that reaches out and serves children and families everywhere, in all circumstances,” Federal Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Ralph Goodale said.

"We're going to look and see to make sure that we're providing those spaces where they're needed. So we'll look at all those opportunities, whether they're in rural or in urban Saskatchewan. Certainly, there's a significant need in urban Saskatchewan for more child care spaces,” Saskatchewan Minister of Education Gordon Wyant said.

By the end of the three-year agreement, Saskatchewan hopes to increase minority language inclusion by targeting 65 spaces for Francophone children.

"This needs to be inclusive, and there are many factors and forces that work against inclusivity, a language minority can be one of the challenges,” Goodale said.

Some funding will be going to providing more learning opportunities for children with disabilities, along with training 300 early childhood educators, 115 licensed family child care home providers and 188 child care centre directors.

"There's always room for improvement within child care. Whether that's providing quality programming, new development spaces for our families, also professional education for staff,” Pelletier said.

The new money will start to flow immediately. The province says it has already begun taking applications for the creation of new childcare spaces.