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With three months to go before the provincial elections in Quebec, the political parties will be talking to us about access to daycare, says Étienne-Alexandre Beauregard, a researcher at the Cardus Institute.

Indeed, the birth rate is an issue that politicians are finally deigning to address (or at least, pretending to). The CAQ, for example, has already promised to add 37,000 daycare places.

However, Beauregard, an essayist often described as a disciple of Mathieu Bock-Côté, explains that Quebec’s subsidized daycare system is “neither universal nor equitable.”

In his study, conducted for the Cardus Institute, Mr. Beauregard notes that the system has never managed to fulfill its promise of providing a daycare spot for every child. Even today, more than 30,000 children are on a waiting list for a spot (though, to be fair, these children would likely prefer to stay with their parents).

The system is unable to meet demand due to a shortage of trained staff, who, as of 2023, accounted for only 46% of childcare providers, Beauregard reports.

Furthermore, Beauregard points out that government funding varies depending on the child care option chosen by parents. In CPEs, the government subsidizes each child’s place at a rate of $70 per day. In a non-subsidized daycare center, the place is subsidized at $33 per day, while there is no assistance for parents who arrange childcare elsewhere or who care for their children themselves.

Beauregard rightly points out that the government subsidizes work by reducing the cost of childcare spots, but does not encourage time spent with family. Yet, he writes, polls show that parents in Quebec would prefer to work less so they could spend more time with their families. He also notes that 50% of Quebecers would prefer a system where funding went directly to parents.

Finally, Étienne-Alexandre Beauregard proposes adopting a program similar to Finland’s, where the government — in addition to subsidizing daycare centers — provides assistance to parents who want to care for their children themselves, or offers a subsidy to parents who would like to work three or four days a week so they can care for their children under the age of three.

Let’s hope that his message is heard in the corridors of power and put into practice. In fact, it’s astonishing that we’ve persisted in maintaining a system with so many flaws, the most obvious of which is that it leaves out parents who care themselves for their children, as if they didn’t exist or shouldn’t exist.

The family is at the heart of our concerns, because without the family, no society can survive.

For Life,
Augustin Hamilton

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