(Quebec) The Legault government assures that it is getting closer to its objective of providing all children with a place in subsidized daycare, less than a year from the deadline it had set.
According to the most recent data from the Ministry of Families, no less than 33,000 subsidized places have been created since 2021, out of the 37,000 that the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) had promised to create by March 31, 2025.
Last spring, the Parti Québécois (PQ) noted that the CAQ was still far from its target: the PQ then pointed out that a place created was not, however, a place created and available.
According to Catherine Pelletier, press secretary for the Minister of Families, Suzanne Roy, since January alone, nearly 10,000 subsidized places priced at $9.10 per day have been created.
Also, the number of children waiting for a subsidized place is constantly decreasing.
For example, there were 32,864 in April 2023, while there were 31,145 last April, even if between 4,000 and 5,000 children of asylum seekers were added over the last year, he said. -we specified.
The downward trend was visible also in the previous months. Thus, in October 2023, there were 30,660 waiting, compared to 32,359 at the same time the previous year.
At the end of March, the PQ maintained that the CAQ government was still far from its commitment. It based its estimate on the places actually created and the rate of creation of places since 2021.
According to the Ministry of Family’s own indicators, as of December 31, 14,596 places had been completed, not created, so there remained more than 22,000 to be completed over 15 months.
Likewise, for the ministry’s dashboard for the month of April, we see that 17,587 places were created, in addition to 8,618 unsubsidized private places converted into subsidized places, but that 20,027 were “in progress” – a relatively vague indicator which does not make it possible to determine at what stage of production they are.
