Blocked projects, endless deadlines and exploding costs: small communities sometimes have to wait 5 to 10 years before opening the doors of a new early childhood center (CPE).
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Since 2022, this has been the case for two municipalities in Bas-Saint-Laurent, whose main stakeholders had to demonstrate great perseverance and resilience to see their project come to fruition.
Last November, more than five years after submitting its documents to the Ministry of Families, the small municipality of Saint-Modeste inaugurated new facilities to accommodate 26 children.
The MP for Rivière-du-Loup–Témiscouata, Amélie Dionne, the mayor of Saint-Modeste, Louis-Marie Bastille and the director of the CPE Jardins Jolis, Mary-Eve Gauvin, during the inauguration of the new facilities of the CPE Les Amis of the forest.
Credit: Facebook page of MP Amélie Dionne
More precisely, as the project was submitted in March 2018 and the first toddlers entered in October 2023, it took five years and seven months before the project came to fruition.
Discussions with the ministry, granting of daycare places, study of the feasibility of approving the site, negotiations with the Commission for the Protection of Agricultural Land of Quebec: the road has been long and arduous.
Almost 10 years of waiting
In the neighboring municipality, the citizens of Saint-Arsène also had to be patient, since almost 10 years passed between the granting of places by the government and the construction of a CPE.
Indeed, it was in December 2013 that the Parti Québécois, via its minister at the time, Pascal Bérubé, announced 34 new places for the small community following a call for projects.
Going through several pitfalls, including exploding costs and negotiations with three different ruling parties, the new CPE finally opened its doors on November 17, 2022.
Around Trois-Pistoles
On December 8, we learned that it was the turn of the leaders of a CPE in Trois-Pistoles to pull their hair out to complete an expansion project.
The director of the CPE la Baleine bricoleuse, Laurie Vaillancourt, declared to local media that the project was in danger due to the lack of flexibility of civil servants at the Ministry of Family.
After the government granted 21 new places in August 2022, the expansion project is currently blocked, even though the plans were submitted in May 2023.
“The rest of us are ready, we have plans that work and we want to create places […] There the project is completely blocked because it costs too much, but it is because it is the ministry which does not adjust to the costs of living,” explains the director.
In January, Mme Vaillancourt should learn more about the government’s intentions for its project, but it could still be several months before the official inauguration of its much-desired subsidized places.