Quebec government promises 13,500 new daycare spaces within 2 years

Quebec Families Minister Mathieu Lacombe says the government will move quickly to add another 13,500 spaces to the provincial daycare network — including 11,000 spaces that were funded under the former Liberal government but never materialized.

Lacombe said the immediate priority is to make space in existing daycares for 2,500 children, primarily infants and children whose parents are in school.

The plan announced Wednesday is the first step toward finding spaces for the 42,000 children on daycare waiting lists in Quebec, said the minister.

"It keeps me from sleeping at night," said Lacombe. "I can't imagine the tens of thousands of children who are waiting and aren't yet in the network. They are more than just numbers."

Of the 11,000 subsidized places that exist only on paper, the government will give the daycares that have been allocated those spaces a maximum of two years to get them up and running.

Some were approved as far back as 2011 and have not yet materialized — a situation the minister calls "outright unacceptable."

Lacombe said a team of 40 within his ministry will work full-time in the coming months to get those 11,000 places "deployed as quickly as possible."

There are also some 8,000 subsidized places in home-based daycares sitting vacant, and Lacombe said he wants to see them filled.

Lacombe's announcement comes a week after the government tabled Bill 5, legislation to establish more pre-kindergarten classes for four-year-olds in the elementary school system.

The minister said the government will draw up a new portrait of daycare needs across the province, taking into account those pre-K classes, some of which are to be established in time for the 2019-2020 school year.