{"id":345852,"date":"2025-12-15T02:17:01","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T02:17:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/345852\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T02:17:01","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T02:17:01","slug":"will-quebecs-childcare-model-work-in-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/345852\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Quebec\u2019s childcare model work in New York?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani believes childcare should be an integral part of our social infrastructure.DARRYL DYCK\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Almost three decades after it was launched, Quebec\u2019s low-cost, universal child-care plan is back in the news.<\/p>\n

The spotlight is shining on the province thanks to New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who says it will serve as a model<\/a> for the city\u2019s plan to offer free daycare to all children aged six weeks to five years old.<\/p>\n

But as others emulate it, has Quebec\u2019s ambitious child-care program lived up to the promise?<\/p>\n

Yes, and no. <\/p>\n

Launched in 1997 by the Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois government, the plan was to offer quality child care to all children of preschool age for $5 a day. <\/p>\n

The centrepiece of the program was a network of Centre de la petite enfance (CPE) facilities that did not just offer daycare, but also early childhood education by trained educators, along with healthy home-cooked meals and snacks. <\/p>\n

Editorial: The growing pains of Ottawa\u2019s subsidized child-care program keep on growing<\/a><\/p>\n

Today, only about 35 per cent of Quebec children attend state-subsidized CPEs, where parents pay a modest daily fee<\/a> of up to $9.35. <\/p>\n

Another 22 per cent of children are in privately operated daycare centres that are subsidized by the province, and where the daily rate is also capped. Twenty per cent of pre-school-age children attend non-subsidized facilities with no cap, but parents are eligible for generous refundable tax credits. Finally, 20 per cent of children under the age of four don\u2019t attend daycare.<\/p>\n

In other words, the education component of the program has been watered down, largely because the province couldn\u2019t keep up with demand. <\/p>\n

At the end of May, there were 30,688 children on the wait-list for subsidized care, despite the fact that 30,000 new spots have been added in the past four years. <\/p>\n

The mathematical reality is that with 77,400 babies born in the province annually, there are more children coming into the system than leaving. <\/p>\n

One of the principal selling points for state-funded child care<\/a> \u2013 and the reason it\u2019s being embraced by other provinces \u2013 is that it allows women to remain in, or return to, the work force. <\/p>\n

On that count, the province has been quite successful. The maternal employment rate in Quebec is 87 per cent, one of the highest in the world. But cheap child care is not the sole factor; Quebec also has generous parental leave (one year) and pay-equity legislation.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s notable too that, since the subsidized child-care program was launched in 1997, there are 75 per cent fewer single mothers on social assistance, and the child poverty rate in the province is 44 per cent lower than other provinces. But, again, those gains are not due to child care alone. <\/p>\n

The two knocks against Quebec\u2019s universal child-care program are that it\u2019s not really universal because it\u2019s too difficult get the good spots in CPEs; and the province has sacrificed quality for quantity, prioritizing getting kids in daycare over offering them first-rate early childhood education.<\/p>\n

In a damning report published last year, Quebec\u2019s Auditor-General said 41 per cent of care facilities failed to meet quality standards, ranging from 21 per cent for CPEs to 59 per cent for subsidized private daycares. (Quality was measured based largely on child\/educator ratios, the educational qualifications of workers, and programs offered.) <\/p>\n

Child-care advocates have, for years, argued that access should be universal and free, just as it is for public school. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s what Mr. Mamdani has proposed: A plan that would cost about US$6-billion annually. But he believes those costs will be offset by having families remain in the city, and mothers remain in the work force. At US$26,000 on average, child care costs are often second only to housing for families. Having children is the principal reason people leave the city, and that hurts the tax base.<\/p>\n

The Quebec experience, however, offers some cautions. The first is that initial demand will likely be overwhelming. <\/p>\n

In a city with 445,000 pre-school-age children, creating spots and finding workers will be an enormous challenge. Child-care workers are poorly paid, and Mr. Mamdani has also promised to hike their wages substantially, to match those of public-school teachers.<\/p>\n

There will be tremendous pressure to cut corners to add spots, and to abandon universality. <\/p>\n

The payback from child care comes in the long-term, not the short term, and its impact can be difficult to measure, so it can be a difficult sell in the political cycle. <\/p>\n

But we should heed Mr. Mamdani\u2019s message: that child care should be an integral part of our social infrastructure. It is part of the education system \u2013 not a babysitting service for those who can afford it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani believes childcare should be an integral part of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345853,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,66,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-345852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-science","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}