Quebec daycare associations say looming cuts worse than expected

Associations representing Quebec's public and subsidized private daycares have walked away from talks with the Quebec government, saying the cuts they're facing are much worse than they expected.

Daycare operators say they were told the government planned to cut $120 million from their budgets.

Now they say they've calculated the cuts will be closer to $320 million, which represents close to 5,000 jobs, according to the Association Québécoise des Centres de la Petite Enfance (AQCPE) – the association representing non-profit, publicly funded daycares.

"It's between 20 and 25 per cent of the educators in public and private subsidized daycares," said Louis Senécal, the AQCPE's president and director general.

"The government has increased fees for daycares. They want parents to pay more but are removing their educators," Senécal said. "It's totally unacceptable."

Senécal said the government did not present them with a firm figure, adding daycare representatives had to calculate the cuts based on government formulas.

Quebec's Families Minister Francine Charbonneau declined to put a number on the cuts earlier Thursday, but a spokesperson later confirmed the original $120-million figure to Radio-Canada, saying the cuts would take effect over two years.

New calculation

Earlier Thursday, Gina Gasparini, a spokeswoman for the AQCPE, explained that the government has ranked each daycare by determining the amount of money spent on each child.

It then determined the average amount spent based on calculating that average from the lowest-spending one-third of provincial daycare centres.

All daycare centres are now to be funded based on that calculation.

"The problem with that is that they don't take into consideration why those small number of CPEs are spending so much less than the others," said Gasparini.

"There could be circumstances that explain it that are not applicable to everybody else."

A previous meeting with the government did not end up as a dialogue, said Samir Alahmad, the president of the Private Daycare Association of Quebec.

He worries staff will have to be let go as a result of the cuts.

"A lot of daycares are cutting here and there. A lot of daycares are in bad financial situations," said Alahmad.

"Can you imagine now with [$120 million more in cuts]? I cannot imagine what the consequences will be."

Parents concerned

Families Minister Charbonneau has not said how the government expects the daycares to tighten their belts.

"Why is it...some people have deficits, and some people have more money? We have to think about this," she said.

"It's the money of every Quebecer that we are giving to make sure that the service is given to families of Quebec."

Stephanie Lemay, whose two children attend the same CPE in St. Bruno, said the government's focus on numbers is trumping children's needs.

"They talk about productivity, but we talk about the child," she said. "We're not talking about a big machine or big business."