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Wendy Foote would like to expand her child-care centre in Montague, P.E.I., to help accommodate at least some of the 277 parents on her waiting list.
So it should be good news that the province is proposing changes to Early Learning and Childcare Act regulations that would increase the cap on the number of children at centres from 80 to 125.
It also proposes increasing the number of infants in a group from six to 12, as long as a centre has the necessary staff and space.
But that's the problem with Foote's child-care centre and others CBC News spoke with — they don't have the extra space.
"Giving new designations to child-care centres that are already up and running and full isn't helping," Foote said. "They need brand-new spaces."
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Doreen Gillis, P.E.I.'s director of early childhood development, hopes some child-care centres will be able to take advantage of the proposed regulations with minimal renovations.
"There are some centres that have beautiful big spaces for their infants. But because of our current regulatory requirements, the group size has to remain at six. So this will provide an opportunity for those centres to increase to either nine or 12 depending on the size of their space."