Former premier Marois asks Liberals to increase funding for CPEs

Former premier Pauline Marois is criticizing the Liberal government's handling of publicly-funded daycares.

Marois, who was family minister when the CPE system was created in 1997, appears in a video for the CSN union.

In the video Marois extols the virtues of the provincially-subsidized daycares as a way to lift women and families out of poverty by allowing people to work.

Last year the province moved away from the fixed $7-a-day fee to a sliding-scale plan, where parents now pay anywhere from $7.30 to $20 per day depending on income.

CPEs said those extra payments, estimated at $170 million, should be going to them.

Instead is cutting $120 million from the CPE budget for 2016, after cutting $74 million from their budget in 2015.

The province said CPEs should use the $177 million in surplus funds they had accumulated by the beginning of 2015 for their daily expenditures.

CPEs said they wanted to keep that money for construction and repairs.  

Capsule 3 - Services de garde éducatifs à l'enfance : message au PM Philippe Couillard from la CSN on Vimeo.