MONTREAL -- The Parti Québécois (PQ) says it is committed to investing $1.17 billion over five years on the province's public daycare network, if it is elected during the next election.
"One hundred per cent CPE (Centres de la petite enfance)," said leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, alongside opposition critic for families, Véronique Hivon, at a news conference Friday at CPE La Petite-Patrie in Montreal.
Plamondon called the current system "anarchic, chaotic and incomprehensible," as there are "all kinds of categories of institutions."
He laments the fact that many parents "have been on waiting lists for years."
For her part, Hivon says "it's a question of priority," arguing that the implementation of kindergarten for four-year-olds will likely cost Quebecers much more in the long run.
"All the new places that need to be developed must be in daycare centres," said Hivon, who also proposed launching "a vast project on accessibility" to allow private daycares to become public. "It is necessary to stop this multi-tiered system, which is like a monster with several heads where nobody can find his way."
Hivon says the Quebec government needs to "get away from this obsession with putting all its eggs in the same basket of kindergarten at four years old," -- one of the flagship promises of François Legault's Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government.
The provincial election in Quebec is slated for Oct. 3, 2022.
-- This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Nov. 19, 2021.
