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Brigitte Cardinal
Founder of the Group of parents who use non-subsidized daycare centers
Mr. Legault, during the first confinement, you clearly indicated that daycare services are considered an essential service. However, this service is not treated equally and fairly.
More than 25% of Quebec parents do not have access to subsidized childcare. Psychological distress was felt long before the pandemic and this distress was amplified because of the financial pressure exerted by the huge costs and the injustice these parents suffer.
Mr. Legault, I am worried about these mothers who write to me: some cry, desperate to find a daycare for their child; others are stressed about telling their employer that they will not be able to return to work. Others have had to quit their profession for lack of affordable daycare space. They are attendants, nurses, biologists, teachers, etc.
I am also worried about these families using unsubsidized child care spaces who are falling into debt and getting poorer: their child care payment is higher than their mortgage, with daily rates of $ 50, or even $ 70 in some regions, during that people with annual family incomes of $ 400,000 or more benefit from a reduced rate of $ 8.50 per day in subsidized day care centers.
The government’s ceiling does not allow early return to approach the single rate of $ 8.50, of which 75% of parents benefit in a childcare center or subsidized environment. Remember that the government tax credit, indexed by $ 0.50 since 2009, covers up to $ 35 per day, depending on family income.
I am also worried about these women (and some men) who cannot flourish by exercising their profession for lack of places in affordable daycare centers, said to be subsidized, those not subsidized being inaccessible to them financially. It harms the condition of women. I am also worried about owners of non-subsidized day care centers (GNS) – often women – who are thinking of closing their doors because they do not have enough children in their daycare, even before COVID-19, since the price is too expensive for a large number of parents, especially since the economic update in fall 2019 proposing a return to the single retroactive rate to the 1is January 2019 only in a subsidized environment.
Finally, I am worried about the families who, because of COVID-19, cannot send their children to daycare due to health problems, and who are still forced to pay the astronomical costs of their unsubsidized daycare. in order to preserve their place.
I have seen a difference of up to $ 15,000 between the annual amount of child care expenses paid by a lucky family who benefits from a subsidized daycare space and what a family in non-subsidized child care has to pay, and this, using the Revenu Québec calculation tool. However, these parents had no choice, because the subsidized network is saturated; more than 70,000 children, whose parents have to work all the more, who use non-subsidized childcare services. These parents pay taxes, just like parents in childcare centers or those in subsidized private daycare centers. Non-subsidized private daycare centers are recognized by the Ministry of the Family and are subject to the same laws and regulations as childcare centers.
No daycare, no workers. No workers, no economy
By improving the tax credit for families in non-subsidized daycare, retroactively to the 1is January 2019, to achieve the same affordable cost as childcare centers, many families could very quickly have access to the 22,500 places currently free, because they are not affordable, in GNS, and thus be able to return to work.
Despite the bureaucratic reductions for the construction of childcare centers announced this week by your Minister of Families, Mathieu Lacombe, and the pilot project to convert GNS into subsidized daycare centers, this solution would make it possible to avoid costs and delays relating to the construction of CPE, but also to remove a thorn from the side of many parents currently using the non-subsidized network by reducing their tax burden, which seems even more logical to me in times of a pandemic.
In an article published in the Journal of Montreal, on October 25, 2013, you said: “If, instead of building for 160 places, we converted the 80 places here into subsidized places, we would not need to build. “Moreover, the federal government has paid you a large amount under the Agreement on Security Relaunch (ARS) with the provinces and territories, an investment linked, among other things, to childcare services in order to make them affordable. to facilitate the return to work of working parents. Unfortunately, this money was not redistributed to favor parents who do not have access to the subsidized network, but rather to support the CPEs again, by helping them to cover the costs related to COVID-19.
According to a study by economists Pierre Fortin, Luc Godbout and Suzie Saint-Cerny (2012), the CPEs were a success both from a social point of view and from an economic point of view. A success for access to employment for women and for the finances of the two levels of government (provincial and federal): each tranche of $ 100 subsidy from the government of Quebec has provided her with a tax return of $ 104 and has donated $ 43 to the federal government.
According to the work of James Heckman, recipient of the Bank of Sweden’s prize in economics (nicknamed “Nobel Prize in economics”), the profitability of investments in educational childcare services is most interesting. Every dollar invested in this sector generates savings of $ 7 in health, education, security and justice services, mainly because of the effectiveness of investments in preventing problems related to human development. The child care issue is clearly the missing link in our economic recovery.
Mr. Legault, the parents of 70,000 children in non-subsidized daycare centers need you in order to correct the tariff inequity that has been running since January 2019. For the good of our society, for the good of employers looking for workers work for the mental health of parents, for the development of children, for the well-being of Quebec families and, also, for the health of our economy, I beg you not to delay in settling this issue for electoral reasons .
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