The gamble seems to have paid off for Saskatchewan Minister of Education Everett Hindley.

The Swift Current MLA chose not to follow the federal government's request in February to sign an early extension of their $10-a-day childcare deal.

Now Hindley reports he will be signing a renegotiated agreement on Friday.

"I've been hearing from families and childcare operators around the province the importance of renegotiating a new childcare deal for Saskatchewan," Hindley said. "We have said that consistently that we want to get a better deal for Saskatchewan families and to try to negotiate something that, frankly, other provinces haven't done... on Friday, we'll be signing and announcing the newly renegotiated deal."

He noted they will share more details on the agreement after it is signed on Friday.

The original childcare agreement with the federal government was set to expire in March 2026. Hindley's decision to not immediately sign a renewal in February faced some criticism from the opposition NDP.

"That deal needs to be signed and it needs to be signed now," said NDP Shadow Minister for Childcare and Early Learning Joan Pratchler in front of Hindley's office this April. "Parents need this deal. Childcare providers need this deal. Hundreds of jobs are on the line. New daycares can't open because they can't get bank loans with guarantees."

It took until this October for new discussions to start with Ottawa.

"I still think it was the right thing to do," Hindley said. "February of this year all of a sudden there was an urgent need by the then federal minister who had reached out to governments across the country and said, you need to re-sign a deal and you've got two weeks. Several provinces did. We looked at it and said, we still have a year to go in the existing deal, we don't think it would be wise to simply sign on the dotted line again. We think it's important to take the feedback we heard from families, from childcare operators and others to say, this deal is working well, but we need some improvements.

"Why would you not try to renegotiate? Fair enough, there was some criticism that there wasn't anything happening."

Hindley had reached out to the new minister after the spring federal election.

"Negotiations did not begin until about the middle of October," Hindley said. "Of course, people were questioning whether this was going to happen. But then when they did reach out, negotiations started very quickly, and they moved very quickly just in the last month or so. I still think that this was the right thing to do. Had we signed back in February, we would have signed onto the exact same deal with no changes. I think that what we did was the right approach and that we did get the best possible deal we could get for our province."

Premier Scott Moe let the cat out of the bag in the legislature on Wednesday.

Hindley again noted we will learn more about the adjustments to the new deal on Friday.