If it is brought to power, the Parti Québécois (PQ) is committed to investing $ 1.17 billion over five years for a “100% CPE” childcare network, announced Chief Paul St-Pierre Plamondon and her spokesperson for the family, Véronique Hivon, at a press conference Friday in the CPE La Petite-Patrie, in Montreal.
“All the new places that must be developed must be developed in childcare centers”, pleaded Ms. Hivon, who also proposes to launch “a vast program to convert private daycare centers into childcare centers”.
“We must stop this multi-speed system […] which is like a monster with many heads where no one can find it, ”she said.
Mr. Plamondon, for his part, described the current network as “anarchic, chaotic and incomprehensible”, since there are “all kinds of categories of institutions”, and deplored the fact that many parents “are on lists of ‘waiting for years’.
The CAQ government of François Legault announced at the end of October funding of $ 3 billion to create a total of 37,000 new child care spaces by 2025.
“There is a development that is beginning, of tens of thousands of places […] and it is not true that we will go there on a first come, first served basis, regardless of the quality of the project, ”said Ms. Hivon.
For profit
Asked about the costs associated with her proposal, she replied that “it is a matter of priority”, arguing that the establishment of four-year-old kindergartens may cost Quebecers much more.
She called for “moving away from this obsession of putting all your eggs in the same basket of four-year-old nursery schools”, which was one of the flagship promises of the Legault government.
“Our children, it’s not a market issue, it’s not a question of profit, it’s a question of giving them the best,” said Mr. Plamondon. All children in Quebec have the right to a place in CPE and to the same level of quality. “
He accused previous Liberal governments of having “done a lot of damage to the system” with their support for the private sector, and the CAQ members of “continuing in the path that has been traced”.
Collaborate with the private sector
Ms. Hivon however insisted on clarifying that her project “does not compromise the existence of subsidized family day care centers, which respond in certain areas and for certain parents to needs which are very real”.
According to her, many business owners would be enthusiastic about converting to a childcare center.
“Private daycares, at the moment, even have in some respects free places, with the return of the single tariff, with the shortage of manpower. For parents, it is sometimes less beneficial to have a child in private daycare for $ 80 a day than to stay at home.
“They can see that the system is no longer working,” she said, promising to “sit down with private daycares” to find solutions “in collaboration”.
This article was produced with financial support from the Facebook and The Canadian Press News Scholarships.