Last year, Quebec had created enough daycare spots to reduce the waiting list by 1,681 children.
The number of spots in Quebec’s daycare network has dropped despite a pledge to the contrary from the Legault government in 2021.
At the end of August, there were 304,084 spots in all types of daycares, government-funded or not, compared with 304,359 recorded by the Quebec Family Ministry in May.
The reduction, while small, is the reverse of what the government intends.
The biggest drop occurred in government-funded family daycare spots — 853 — a reduction that was not offset by the creation of 286 spots in government-run daycares or the 281 spots in sponsored daycares.
During the same period last year, Quebec had created enough spots to reduce the waiting list by 1,681 children.
The opposition Parti Québécois says it is concerned by the numbers, since the government pledged in 2021 to spend $3 billion to create 37,000 government-funded spots by March 2025.
PQ MNA Joël Arseneau wondered whether the Coalition Avenir Québec government had underestimated the scale of the task.