(Quebec) Even though he largely missed his target for creating places in early childhood centers (CPE) and in subsidized private daycares in 2021-2022, Mathieu Lacombe has set himself a new “ambitious” target for this year. : add 10,000 new places to the network and “catch up on the delay we have taken”.
Posted at 2:56 p.m.
The Minister of the Family reacted on Tuesday to the revelations of The Presswhich revealed in the morning that the government created 3,201 subsidized places and in CPEs between 1er April 2021 and March 31, when it had set itself the goal of creating between 5,000 and 7,000. in family child care. On the net, 1,934 places were therefore added in daycare services.
In a scrum in parliament, Mr. Lacombe acknowledged that his target had not been reached, but he attributed this failure to specific factors, such as the recent pandemic waves and the fatigue felt in the network.
Despite everything, the Minister of Families affirmed that he had set the “ambitious” objective of creating 10,000 new places in the daycare network in 2022-2023. He also promises to catch up this summer with places that were not developed in 2021-2022, but which had to be. Remember that Quebec has promised to complete the network of educational childcare services by adding more than 37,000 new places by 2025 to ensure a right of access for each child.
In the meantime, to parents who are asking for emergency financial assistance because they cannot find a place for their child in daycare, Mathieu Lacombe once again closed the door on Tuesday. He said he prefers to invest public funds in the creation of places as quickly as possible, because such a program would be inapplicable.
And then, he added, “where does it end”, this kind of program? “Are we going to financially compensate people who don’t have a family doctor? Are we going to financially compensate people who are waiting for the services of a psychologist? Where do we draw the line? Me, I think it would be a slippery slope,” he said.
The waiting list for a daycare place has gone from 51,073 children on December 31, 2020 to 51,761 on December 31.