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Quebec aims to add more spaces in daycare services by accelerating projects

As of Aug. 31, there were more than 33,300 children across Quebec on a waiting list for daycare spaces.

Children play in the snow at a CPE daycare in downtown Montreal.
Children play in the snow at a CPE daycare in downtown Montreal. Photo by John Mahoney /Montreal Gazette

With thousands of children on a waiting list, the Quebec government says it’s determined to quickly add more spaces in daycare services through the creation of a new office dedicated to the task.

As of Aug. 31, there were more than 33,300 children across the province on a waiting list.

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The government had launched a new initiative in October 2021 that aimed to ensure every child would have a daycare spot come 2024 or 2025. Projects were submitted to the government but have since faced various delays and are taking more time than expected to materialize.

Therefore, Quebec is now launching the Bureau d’accélération des projets to speed up the process.

In an interview Monday, Family Minister Suzanne Roy said representatives from the office will meet for the first time this month and then again every two weeks. When a problem is reported, it will seek to find out what is delaying or blocking a project, and then work to solve the problem.

The office’s decisions will be binding, Roy stressed.

“To ensure that decisions are made more quickly, and to avoid back and forth when there are difficulties, exceptions or special cases, it will be an office that will make binding decisions,” Roy said. “It will make decisions and things will move.”

Roy said she wants to avoid projects that exceed the two-year deadline for completion “at all costs.” The are currently 700 daycare projects underway, but Roy could not say how many of these are actually stalled, as it fluctuates and depends on various factors.

The minister noted that since the fall of 2021, more than 8,000 daycare spaces have been created, which she described as a “20-year high.” But the need is even greater, she said, hence the need to accelerate the process.

For its part, the Association québécoise des Centres de la petite enfance (AQCPE) said it was pleased with Roy’s initiative on Monday.

“It’s to go faster, to unblock (the projects). We had asked the previous minister for this,” said Hélène Gosselin, president of the group’s board of directors. “So for the minister to put this in place quickly at the beginning of her mandate, for us, it is very good news.”

Gosselin said projects can often be delayed or blocked because of a problem with the size of the land, the notary or a change in the developer, which results in “back and forths” with government officials.

She hopes that when the new office identifies solutions for particular projects, they can then be used as a model for other projects that face a similar problem.

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