Daycare abuse allegations signal need for changes to Alberta legislation: NDP

The province is being accused of not doing enough to keep parents of kids in childcare informed when serious incidents happen. Amanda Anderson reports.

Alberta’s Official Opposition is calling on the UCP to allow for more transparency in making families aware of abuse allegations at child-care facilities in the province.

Child care and family services shadow Minister Diana Batten said certain “serious” and “severe” child abuse cases at daycares in recent months have spurred a need to amend the Early Learning and Child Care Act to a government-led notification system.

“We need the government to take responsibility for notifying all parents when serious physical or sexual abuse allegations happen in child-care programs,” she told reporters in a Wednesday press conference.

The call to action also outlined the need for an accessible, public online portal to access a child-care program’s full history.

The government currently has a database for looking up available child care in the province with recent information on a provider’s licence, capacity and results of inspections from up to 18 months ago.

Timing of family notifications

Marlin Schmidt, the NDP MLA for Edmonton-Gold Bar, told reporters there was too big a gap between when an allegation occurs at a facility and when families actually learn about it.

Willowbrae Academy Millcreek, a daycare in his riding, made headlines in 2025 after complaints of abuse arose against an employee.

Police issued a Canada-wide warrant for 32-year-old Dilpreet Singh Chawla, who had at that point been placed on leave from Willowbrae, for sexual assault and sexual interference.

The first complaint, which alleged sexual assault in a shed at the facility, was reported to Alberta’s Early Learning and Child Care office on June 18. Families were informed of a ‘serious incident’ at the daycare in August in a bulletin post.

Read more: Policy change needed after way daycare sex assault was communicated: parent

“The child-care operator seemed to have followed all of the rules. The status quo is leaving parents in the dark about serious abuse incidents by placing all of the onus on the child-care operators to notify and report these kinds of incidents,” Schmidt said.

At least one family filed a Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIP) request as they said initial language used in Willowbrae’s bulletin alluded to an “inappropriate interaction” but did not immediately note the sexual nature of the allegations.

The case has catalyzed calls for policy change from parents who said earlier media releases from police would have better informed the families of children at the daycare.

Schmidt said the province’s child care office owes families concrete information so as to not let them “fill in the (blanks) with their imagination.”

The NDP say changing the Act to put more onus on the government would absolve the need for “pointing fingers” between police, the Early Learning and Child Care office and child-care providers during an investigation.

At legislature Wednesday, childcare and education minister Demetrios Nicolaides told reporters he was “happy” to look into ways of strengthening the reporting process for child-care facility incidents.

“I met with some of the parents and families from Willowbrae in particular, directly, and they were looking for some greater parental notifications. So I’m happy to look into that,” he said.

The government does, however, want to be mindful of active criminal investigations, he said, noting that reports are often mired in legalities in cases like Willowbrae’s.

“What level of information could we provide without compromising the details of a criminal investigation … so I have asked my team to take a closer look and to see what kind of information can we provide while not putting anybody’s privacy at risk?”

By December, Edmonton police had confirmed Chawla was no longer in the country and is facing charges involving two children.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Amanda Anderson