Advocates highlight growing inequalities during Early Childhood Week

Early Childhood Week is underway, and advocates say governments need to do more to address the issue of inequality.

“If you are, for example, from a family in low income, or if you live in a family that speaks mostly English, when you enter kindergarten, you are more at risk of having vulnerabilities in many areas of your development,” says Elise Bonneville, the Director of Collectif petite enfance.

She says families in the province are facing growing socioeconomic and territorial disparities, which is why this year's early childhood week is taking a closer look at these gaps.

“We have to take a voice with them and remind everybody that this is a very crucial period for the human development,” she adds.

Quebec's latest survey on kindergarten children's development shows a sharp increase, between 2012 and 2022, in the number of 5-year-olds considered vulnerable.

English-speaking children are even more at risk, notes the survey, which is a key concern for First Nations communities explains Derek Aronhia:nens Montour, an ambassador with the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Health and Social Service Commission Board of directors.

“Especially with the increasing laws as they relate to language, we were forced to speak English and now we're being told you must speak French, meanwhile our own language is dwindling,” Montour says.

He also says Indigenous communities face even greater risk due to systemic discrimination.

“There are remoteness factors, them being a small community size and there's the challenges between jurisdiction,” Montour says.

But even in the city, these gaps still exist says the Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough mayor Pierre Lessard-Blais.

“All those public infrastructures are really important to lower the differences between poorer and richer families in the borough, Lessard-Blais says.

While there's no miracle solution, Bonneville says governments need to do more.

“Governments have to be thinking politics and social actions towards the communities and communities know what's best for their populations,” Bonneville says.