The Legault government is stalling and remains very far from achieving its objective of providing all children with a place in subsidized daycare by 2025.
The Parti Québécois (PQ) arrived at this observation by collecting data from the network.
In October 2021, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) committed to creating 37,000 subsidized places by March 31, 2025, at a cost of $3 billion. The Prime Minister even showed his impatience and eagerness by suggesting that he found the deadline too far away.
However, the waiting list was still 30,660 children last February.
According to the Ministry of Family, 14,596 places had been completed as of December 31, 2023, i.e. in a little over two years and 15 months from the deadline. There would therefore remain 22,400 to be created by March 31, 2025.
“It’s mission impossible,” assesses the PQ’s family spokesperson, Joël Arseneau, in an interview with The Canadian Press.
From January 31, 2023 to January 31, 2024, a net 6,048 new subsidized places were created: 2,418 places in Early Childhood Centers (CPE), plus 5,907 places in subsidized private daycares, from which we must however subtract 2,277 places that already existed in unsubsidized private, but which have been converted into subsidized private.
This gives around 500 places created per month on average. At this rate, from February 2024 to March 2025, 6,500 new subsidized places will have been created, still far from the mark.
If we take another more recent indicator, in a table from the Ministry of Family, dated January 31, 2024, we indicate that 15,366 subsidized places in facilities, CPE or private, have been created.
It is also reported that 6,190 subsidized places were added in family daycares, between October 2021 and January 2024.
The total would then be 21,556 places achieved since the CAQ made its commitment, in October 2021, until January 31, 2024. The gap between 21,556 and the final objective of 37,000 places as of March 31 of the year next would therefore remain 15,444.
Over 13 months, this gives an average of 1,188 places per month, more than the monthly average of places achieved since October 2021.