Some Quebec parents are showing concern after reports surfaced Tuesday that the Couillard Liberals are considering cutting parental leave.

Parents currently receive an average of 12 months of leave, but the government is not denying it's considering cutting that to nine or 10 months.

Many parents will agree one of the best things about living in Quebec is the benefits, including cheap daycare and generous parental leaves.

In the rest of Canada, mothers taking mat leave average 55 per cent of a year.

In Quebec, it's 70 per cent.
 

Lindsay Smith, mother to young Jacob, said she sees the benefit.

“We're really enjoying our time together and I think it's important to have that time to nurture that relationship with your child and learn and grow together,” she said.

The opposition is furious of word the Liberals are preparing to cut parental leave, possibly by one or 2 months.

“If they were to cut back for one month, the leave that was allowed, that would be one more month needed in daycare,” said PQ MNA Jean-Francois Lisee.

Because the civil service is so large, the PQ estimates that one month less of parental care might save the government about $15 million – but believes it will also cost up to $50 million to find new daycare spaces.

“Every time they look at a Quebec program that we built over the years, they say we should have the same as the Canadian average. Well we don't want to be average Canadians; we want to be excellent Quebecers,” he said.

Our system is the envy of many Canadians said family activist Sylvie Levesque, executive director of the Federation of Associations of single-parent and blended families in Quebec.

“If we start cutting, if we start cutting it, we'll end up with children three and four months old in daycare,” she said.

But businesses say cutting parental leave would save money.

“Well of course we appreciate our quality of life, it is important, but what we think is that to keep this quality of life we have to be more competitive,” said Norma Kozhaya, research director and chief economist of the Conseil du patronat du Quebec.

“We have to see to ask ourselves can we afford these programs in our situation,” she said.

For now, the premier is neither confirming nor denying there are plans to cut parental leave.