This was to be Justin Trudeau’s political legacy.
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After decades of debate and false starts, his government achieved the impossible; implement a system of subsidized child care from coast to coast.
Quebec would no longer be an exception with its $10 daycares. All Canadian families would be entitled to it.
Major progress for women’s access to the labor market. Essential measure to combat inequalities. This was her feminist progressivism in all its glory.
Except that less than a year after its implementation, things are failing everywhere.
Rarely has Quebec’s insistence on respecting its areas of jurisdiction been so validated.
When the federal government imposes its vision on the provinces, they end up picking up the bill.
Damn inflation
While Quebec received a check for $6 billion to invest as it saw fit in the consolidation of the CPE network, the other provinces had to sign agreements, accompanied by onerous conditions.
The objective was noble, to reduce the cost of daycare by 50% to reach a single cost of $10 per day in 2025.
The problem? The cost of living crisis. Rising rents, rising food costs, suddenly the subsidies granted in 2022 are no longer enough to cover the drop in prices granted to parents.
- Listen to the Latraverse-Bock-Côté meeting with Emmanuelle Latraverse via QUB :
Worse, experts reveal that it was clear that the system was underfunded!
From Alberta to Ontario, the list of daycares threatening to withdraw from this pseudo-public system is growing.
The informed response from the minister responsible? The provinces knew what they were getting into when they signed!
So the Trudeau government has its feminist political victory in its pocket, the provinces can deal with the dismay of parents and the rest of the bill.
After me, the flood
The example of Quebec was nevertheless revealing. A subsidized daycare program creates demand, which continues to explode as costs do.
A virtuous social policy, but oh so complicated to assume. Talk to the Minister of Families, Suzanne Roy.
But that’s the beauty of the maneuver for the federal government.
He writes the initial check, but never has to worry about the consequences and details of implementation.
Photo AFP
One would have thought that the health debate would have served as a warning. But no.
And it’s only just started.
Think of the chaos caused by his ideological blindness on the issue of immigration. He opens the doors, the provinces take the blow.
Then what will happen with a possible pan-Canadian drug insurance program? The same problem.
For example, with antidepressants and ADHD medications suddenly being free, aren’t prescriptions and costs certain to explode as was the case with us?
Regardless, Justin Trudeau will have his political victory.
Daycares, dental insurance, drug insurance, it will be able to boast of having been the government to have expanded the social safety net the most in the country since the 1960s.
He will be able to warn us against possible cuts by the Conservatives.
But he won’t have to pick up the pieces. He leaves that to the provinces and future generations.