765 more regional daycare spaces offer parents relief @E:Increase won’t ease immediate shortage

Following an announcement Tuesday morning by Education, Leisure, Sports and Family minister, Michelle Courchesne, that 18,000 places will be created in the next three years across Quebec at a cost of $235 million, local representatives said the move adds up to more than 750 spaces to be created in Vaudreuil-Soulanges by 2010.

Though the news will not mean immediate relief for all parents seeking subsidized daycare, it is expected to help ease what has become a province-wide demand for affordable daycare.

Some subsidized spaces should open up at area daycares as early as next month.

Soulanges MNA and Assistant Government Whip, Lucie Charlebois, and Vaudreuil MNA, Yvon Marcoux, noted, during a joint press conference, that the increases will allow the government to meet its goal of offering 220,000 subsidized spaces in Quebec by 2010, two years ahead of an original 2012 deadline.

Starting next month and continuing to 2010, the new spaces will be phased in at 13 Vaudreuil and Soulanges daycare and private centres overseen by government officials.

Courchesne’s office said they received requests from 2,000 Quebec daycares to increase allotted spaces.

In Vaudreuil-Soulanges, the breakdown for 2008 will go as follows: CPE Soulanges in Les Coteaux will get 19 additional subsidized spaces, while Projet Nancy Ferraro (Garderie Nancy BB+) in St. Lazare, will be allotted another 39 spots. Sixty-two places will be opened this year in CPE Soulanges’ privately run home daycares, while CPE Les Petits Mousses home daycares in Pincourt will open another 100 spaces.

It is expected that some of the slots will be opened in existing daycares, while others, to be added by 2010, could be created when some daycare centres expand or are newly built.

Centres to receive more subsidized spots in 2009 include 52 places for Garderie le Petit Castel III inc., in Vaudreuil-Dorion, Projet Normand Brasseur (Coin des lutins,) in Coteau-du-Lac, which will get 71 places, Les Amis du carré de sable in St. Lazare will increase by 72 subsidized places, and Les Coteaux’s CPE Soulanges family daycares will be bolstered by another 38 places next year.

The 2010 expansion will include 72 additional spots for CPE L'Île aux trésors in Notre-Dame-de-l'Île-Perrot, 60 for Le royaume des enfants de Saint-Lazare, 60 for Garderie éducative enfant cité DM inc., 60 for Projet Nourith Salonichios in Vaudreuil-Dorion and the same number, 60, for CPE Les Petits Mousses, also in Vaudreuil-Dorion.

While the increases mean parents should feel some relief in the coming years, they are still encouraged to get their names onto waiting lists as soon as they know they will have a child, or begin plans to return to work.

Meanwhile, Marcoux noted that a bolstered and pending tax credit should further help ease things for parents.

“The improvement of the tax credit for day care cost will come into effect on January 1, 2009 and it will permit parents to benefit from an equivalent support, no matter the type of day care service they choose and this will be applied to a family’s revenue of up to $80,000 dollar,” he explained.To view the daycare project list go to: www.mfa.gouv.qc.ca