(Montreal) Determined to speed up the creation of places in daycare services, while thousands of children are on a waiting list, Quebec is setting up a Project Acceleration Office.
More than 33,300 children were registered on a waiting list to obtain a place on August 31st.
Quebec had launched, in October 2021, a “Major project for families”, which aimed to ensure a place for all children by 2024-2025. Projects have therefore been submitted to the Ministry of the Family, but the delays are sometimes long before the projects materialize, for various reasons.
Quebec is therefore launching this Project Acceleration Office to hasten the process.
In an interview on Monday, the Minister of Families, Suzanne Roy, specified that the office will meet for the first time this month, then every two weeks. When a pitfall is reported to him, he will find what is slow or blocking, and then get busy solving the problem. And its decisions will be binding, underlines the minister.
“So that there are really decisions that are made more quickly, to avoid back and forth, when there are difficulties, exceptions or special cases, it will really be an office that will do an enforceable follow-up. He will make decisions and things will change,” Minister Roy said.
She wants to “avoid at all costs” projects that exceed the two-year deadline for completion. This time frame often includes the development of plans, construction and the rest.
Currently, 700 projects are underway. She could not specify how many of these are actually blocked, since it fluctuates and depends on different factors.
She notes that since the launch of the Large construction site for families, in October 2021, more than 8,000 places have been created, “a record for 20 years”, she says. But the needs are even greater – hence the need to hasten the pace.