(Quebec) Parents from all over Quebec who cannot find a place for their child in daycare are asking the Legault government to grant financial assistance to families who need it until it has created the 37,000 places promised in the network by 2025.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
The Ma place au travail movement has been circulating for a few days a letter intended for the Minister of Finance, Eric Girard, and the Minister of Labor, Jean Boulet, asking them to recognize “the distress of parents affected by the shortage” of places in educational services. in childhood. On March 19, “the strollers will arrive at the National Assembly”, promise the signatories, a demonstration to “face this crisis by being less alone”.
“Although the shortage […] affects children of all ages, the rarest places are those for infants, i.e. babies under 18 months. Between the end of parental leave benefits and the child’s 18 months, there is a huge chasm into which parents fall. Emergency aid is therefore essential to face this critical period, ”we can read in the letter circulating with parents.
“Parents affected by the shortage are plunged into financial instability and situations of social vulnerability caused by this situation beyond their control. Some seek help from loved ones, while others try somehow to adjust their work schedules. The less fortunate among us give up or outright lose their jobs,” we lament.
Distress in families
The spokesperson for the Ma place au travail movement, Myriam Lapointe Gagnon, relays more than ever these days the distress of parents who cannot find a place for their child in daycare. She herself learned a few days ago that her son’s home daycare was going to close.
“This environment is supported at arm’s length by an educator at heart, a strong, sensitive and dedicated woman who simply can’t take it anymore. A woman who goes into debt to work. A woman who is asked to carry the fate of six families on her shoulders, ”she says in a Facebook post.
When I talk about it, my voice quivers. When I think about it, my heart trembles. Especially when I think about what my child is losing that goes far beyond the financial and professional impact on our family. My child is losing a stable and loving attachment figure to whom he entrusted his heart after a slow and emotional integration.
Myriam Lapointe Gagnon, spokesperson for the Ma place au travail movement, in a post on Facebook
In interview with The PressMme Lapointe Gagnon adds that his story “is one among many” and that the situation is deteriorating on the ground, although the government has tabled Bill 1 to “complete and modernize the network of educational childcare services in childhood “. This “major project” includes, among other things, an investment of “at least 3 billion dollars, including 1.8 billion in new measures by 2024-2025”, as well as the commitment “that every child can have a place” when the network is completed.
PHOTO JACQUES BOISSINOT, CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
Mathieu Lacombe, Minister of the Family
“Our movement is growing,” warns Myriam Lapointe Gagnon, who feels that Quebec does not provide immediate solutions to parents who cannot find a place in the network. She asks Minister Mathieu Lacombe to endow his bill with an obligation of result.
The oppositions mobilized
A few months before the elections, the opposition parties are also more mobilized than ever on the issue of the lack of places in daycare centres.
“I feel a lot of grumbling [sur le terrain]because everything that has been announced in the creation of places is for people who do not yet have a pregnancy project, while parents who are currently in trouble do not have answers, “says MNA Christine Labrie, from Québec solidaire.
“The feeling I have is that this is the fight of a generation. These parents do not accept the government’s inaction and casualness. […] It is not by saying that there will be room within three years that we are meeting the needs of parents at the moment,” adds Véronique Hivon, of the Parti Québécois.
“The government is making announcements for the creation of new places, but they are empty because the labor shortage is too great and we do not have enough educators to open all these places”, continues the Liberal MP Jennifer Maccarone.
Mathieu Lacombe announced earlier this month the creation of 14,000 new places in the network within two years, ensuring that 34,000 of the 37,000 places promised are in progress. The government estimates that it will need 18,000 new educators to meet daycare needs. The Minister of Families assured that salary increases of up to 18% in the latest collective agreements would attract a sufficient number of professionals to the network.