The Government of Quebec has decided to appeal a court decision handed down a month ago that allowed asylum seekers to regain the access they had lost to subsidized daycare. This announcement arouses the ire of several organizations that have mobilized over the past four years to ensure that the immigrant families concerned can recover this right.
“We are exasperated,” dropped Maryse Poisson, one of the main spokespersons for the Accès Garderie Committee. “We did everything we could to make our point heard. We discussed with all the opposition parties that are in our favor, we waited more than two and a half years to finally go to the superior court and we finally had a decision in our favor. […]. Except that here, the government decides not to listen to us and to appeal. »
Until the beginning of 2018, asylum seekers had access to subsidized child care, but the then Minister of Families, within the Liberal government, decided to reinterpret section 3 of the Regulation respecting the reduced contribution of the Educational Childcare Services Act. From now on, $8.50 a day child care would only be available to someone with a “work permit and [qui] resides in Quebec mainly to work there”.
This new interpretation did not consider that asylum seekers were here “mainly” to work. Various representations to the CAQ government subsequently elected failed to influence this decision.
However, at the end of May, the Superior Court had ruled that the government did not have the powers to reinterpret section 3 of the regulation on childcare services and that, consequently, asylum seekers should have the right to send their children to subsidized child care. ” [Le Tribunal] declares that article 3 of the Regulation on the reduced contribution was adopted without legislative authorization and is therefore ultra vires and void,” concluded Justice Marc St-Pierre of the Superior Court.
Maryse Poisson believes that the CAQ government has decided to appeal the judgment to avoid this thorny subject as the elections approach this fall. She also regrets that the Minister of Families, Mathieu Lacombe, recently decided to put Ukrainian nationals in the same boat, by preventing them from having access to subsidized daycare. ” The same [article 3 du] regulations are interpreted exclusively for Ukrainians. For us, this is shocking. These are people who have work permits, ”says the one who is director of social initiatives at Collectif Bienvenue.
For her, the observations made in the field and the research are clear to this effect: Access to subsidized daycare centers is a basic policy for the integration of immigrant women. “And on the other hand, the government asks immigrants to learn French in six months. But how can they do that if they don’t have access to child care? »
Me Guillaume Grenier, one of the lawyers in the file, indicated that he would contest the appeal of the Attorney General in this case. He will also file an incidental appeal to contest certain portions of the decision, in particular those where the judge rejects the discriminatory nature of the situation.
Further details will follow.