The Coalition avenir Québec continues the waltz of electoral commitments while the campaign has still not started.
Posted at 2:58 p.m.
On Friday, it was the turn of the Minister of Families, Mathieu Lacombe, to announce the end of unsubsidized private daycare.
The CAQ is committed to injecting $1.4 billion over five years to convert all non-subsidized daycare spaces into subsidized spaces, which, according to Minister Lacombe, will resolve a problem that has persisted for years.
“Within five years, every toddler in Quebec will be able to have a subsidized place at $8.70 in a quality educational childcare service. It also means: fairness, well fairness, between all Quebec parents.
“We’ve been waiting for our network to be completed for 25 years. It’s been 25 years since all parents have had a place in daycare for their child or they have to pay 40, 50, if not 60, 65 dollars per day per child, ”he argued.
There are still tens of thousands of children waiting for a place in subsidized daycare and the 37,000 or so places that have been promised by the Legault government are slow to materialize.
88,000 places to come
Mathieu Lacombe said that 32,000 of these places will be in progress by the end of August and that the conversion he is announcing targets no less than 56,000 places in non-subsidized daycares. He says he is convinced that these two initiatives will make it possible to meet the strong demand that the public network has never been able to satisfy.
“If we want parents to be able to go to work in a context of labor shortage, if we want parents to be able to cope with inflation, in particular, we must give them access to the $8.70 rate “, he argued.
Already, his ministry launched a first conversion project in August 2021 and a second last June. “We have already done the test as part of the mandate. We converted 3,500 places and I would tell you that, overall, it went well. We learned from all that. »
Thus, for example, the owners of non-subsidized daycare services will have the choice of becoming childcare centers (CPE), which are non-profit organizations, or remaining private for-profit companies. Non-subsidized private daycare centers wishing to retain this status may also do so.
Ministerial or electoral announcement?
Prime Minister François Legault had promised last June that there would be no more government announcements from him or his ministers as of June 1.er July. However, such announcements are multiplying, but the Deputy Prime Minister, Geneviève Guilbault, who was alongside Minister Lacombe for this one, defended herself from breaking this promise.
“There has been no government announcement since 1er July. There was no announcement of new money. Today it is an announcement, I would say, from the Coalition avenir Québec, to be distinguished from a government announcement, ”she said, pointing to the similar actions of other political parties.
For Geneviève Guilbault, “the imminence of the election campaign means that the parties are beginning to gradually reveal their intentions a little bit”.
Despite everything, Friday’s announcement was presented as a firm intention in a future mandate, and this, by the Minister for the Family in title and not by the Prime Minister within the framework of an electoral campaign which is still not not triggered. It is far from certain that the public will make the same distinction as the Deputy Prime Minister between an election announcement and a government announcement.
A very skeptical opposition
Opposition parties are unimpressed with this promise.
On the side of Québec solidaire, the candidate in Rivière-du-Loup, Myriam Lapointe-Gagnon, underlines that after four years of CAQ government and numerous past promises “we still have so many children waiting for a place, the families have become impoverished, there is still a crying lack of educators and no emergency aid for parents deprived of a return to work”.
She believes that a “structuring plan” is needed that Québec solidaire intends to present in the weeks to come.
Among the Liberals, MP Marc Tanguay recalls that the CAQ already promised a place in daycare for all children in the 2018 election. According to him, the CAQ has “failed and abandoned the parents”.
“The waiting list has gone from 40,000 people to 52,000. In addition, in four years, the CAQ has only managed to convert 1,767 places. How will they be able to convert 67,000 in five years? asks the MP for LaFontaine, who describes the commitment as a “failure announced”.
On the Parti Québécois side, MP Méganne Perry Mélançon finds this commitment “a little surprising and unconvincing”, whereas the CAQ had always planned so far to maintain places in the unsubsidized private sector.
Although the PQ is in favor of the proposed conversion, Mme Perry-Mélançon condemns the minister’s intention to give daycare centers the choice of converting to CPEs or remaining private. “For us, in the Parti Québécois, it has to go to one place and it is in the CPE network, while maintaining, of course, the network in the family environment. What we want to prioritize is really a 100% CPE shift. All young families in Quebec, their number one choice is the CPE. »
The AQCPE is delighted, but with reservations
On the other hand, the Quebec Association of Early Childhood Centers (AQCPE) applauds the Minister’s intention which, according to it, “is part of one of the foundations of the network, which is universality”.
However, like the PQ, the Association hopes that the priority of this transformation will be towards the CPEs. Its director general, Geneviève Bélisle, goes so far as to say that the minister should not leave the decision in the hands of the owners. “The personal choice of the owners should not guide this conversion, but the needs of the families, their preferences and the objectives of this social project,” she says.