CPE and daycare centers | Selecting according to ethnicity was a suggestion from the Ministry

The Ministry of Families has lost its way in planning its one-stop shop for daycare places.

Imagine that the selection of children according to belonging to a community – religious or ethnic – was even a suggestion from the Ministry to daycares, according to what I learned.

The Ministry also suggests that establishments can “prioritize” the children of recent immigrants, which is what 164 CPEs and subsidized daycares in the Montreal region are doing, I discovered.

Given the lack of places, shouldn’t the reservation system be fair to all applicants, whether they are immigrants, natives or members of a community?

I learned of this curious position of the Ministry by obtaining a copy of a form that CPEs and daycares had to complete last spring to justify their selection criteria for the one-stop shop, planned for fall 2025.

A daycare director and a mother looking for a place, among others, confirmed the situation to me. They contacted me after reading my texts on the 36 establishments which have religion or ethnicity among their selection criteria¹.

Follow me, you will understand soon enough.

Last March, therefore, the Ministry asked CPEs and daycares to complete a framework form. To guide them, he suggests classifying the missions that justify their selections into 10 categories. Clearly, these suggested categories are presumed legitimate by the Ministry².

For example, a daycare could check categories that allow equal opportunities for children, or that promote work-family-study balance for parents. Thus, a daycare could “prioritize” children who have a physical or mental disability or who need special support, or whose parents are recipients of social assistance.

So far, nothing to complain about, since subsidized daycare centers and daycares should ideally support the most disadvantaged first, which has not always been the case since the creation of the network.

Now, among these categories suggested to daycare centers by the Ministry are also “Reception of children linked to a community” or even “Reception of children whose parents are recent immigrants”.

Isn’t that curious? Why suggest such “prioritization” for these places financed 80% by the State?

My first source – let’s call her Ms Y – called the Ministry twice last March to understand what they meant by “community-related”. And each time, this daycare director was told that it referred to “a Jewish, Algerian, Muslim community, or those who have a Greek mother tongue, etc..” », in short to ethnic or religious communities.

My second source, for her part, was shaken while doing her research for a place in daycare, in June 2023. 10 weeks pregnant, she was looking for daycare for her unborn daughter in a context of a severe shortage of places and asked. is focused on the La Place 0-5 site, of the Ministry of Families, which will become the one-stop shop.

When she registered, the Ministry’s computer form asked her if she was a recent immigrant, telling her that in which case she could be “given priority in certain childcare services.”

“My partner and I were stunned and indignant to read these questions and to realize that, according to the Ministry of Family, our “Quebec”, “white” and “ethnic” family situation could penalize our daughter’s access at a daycare,” she wrote to me.

This mother from Laval, who has still not found a place for her daughter, now 10 months old, is not a radical right-wing anti-social measures.

“I understand that certain forms of positive discrimination can be morally acceptable to prioritize, for example, children with special needs in establishments offering the required services, or even families whose other children already attend the establishment.

“What outrages me is to see certain techniques of morally unacceptable discrimination to grant priorities, particularly based on ethnicity, religion or even the status of newcomer, especially in a situation of shortage. Access should be equal and that does not seem to be the case,” says this mother, who wants to remain anonymous so as not to harm her research.³.

After his first email, I checked how many CPEs and subsidized daycares say they give some form of priority to what the Ministry lists on La Place 0-5 as “From immigration (in Quebec for less than 5 years) “. And I added establishments that list “New Arrival” as a priority, among others.

Result: 164 CPE and daycare centers in the Montreal region welcoming more than 11,000 children have this mission among their criteria. They are almost everywhere, but there is a certain concentration in Lachine, in Montréal-Nord, as well as in the boroughs of Verdun, Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie and Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce .

It is impossible to know how many of the 11,000 children were accepted under this criterion. Is it 10%, 20%, 50%?

These 164 establishments are in addition to the 36 which have among their selection criteria membership of a religious or ethnic community (Jewish, Armenian, Greek, Egyptian, etc.). So that makes a total of 200 out of the 2108 in the Montreal region.

Last week, the Minister of Families, Suzanne Roy, finally ruled that belonging to an ethnic or religious community is not among the missions that are acceptable as selection criteria. It thus contradicted, in some way, the suggestion in its form last March.

I wanted to know from the minister what the situation was also for the recent immigration mission. After all, his ministry may have excellent reasons for including this criterion on the La Place 0-5 site and for suggesting it to daycares, despite the shortage of places.

Perhaps he has studies which would indicate, for example, that daycares are an ideal gateway for immigrant families, whose first years are difficult?

Perhaps the Ministry would tell me that this criterion is aimed at the Frenchization and integration of recent immigrants, and that the teams at these daycares are precisely trained in this regard, or at least that it will ensure this?

Perhaps he will explain to me that he will see to maintaining a mix to avoid the ghettos that such a criterion could create in these childcare services?

I insisted, even suggesting these possible answers to the Ministry, in the form of questions. The Quebec Association of CPE is not against this “recent immigration” mission – unlike that of ethnicity or religion –, provided that it is transparent, motivated and that we verify its validity. impact.

However, the minister refused to explain herself properly. In a first email, his press secretary, Gabrielle Côté, wrote to me “that a minority of daycare services give priority to a few places for newcomers. There are currently far too many admissions policies and specific missions. The Minister of Families is reviewing them to ensure that the needs of families are met.”

In a subsequent email, she wrote to me: “We are currently identifying and reviewing all missions and partnerships. Our objective is to increase equity in access to subsidized places and it is with this logic that we will act.”

Well, you’re talking…

In my opinion, the Ministry wanted to protect daycares, particularly ethnic and religious ones, but it got bogged down. If it really wants to achieve a fair one-stop shop, it will have to limit exceptions, even if it means displeasing certain establishments. And that daycares that want to stand out become 100% private.

With the collaboration of Jean-Hugues Roy, The Press

1. Read our file “Thirty-six CPE select according to ethnicity or religion”

2. These categories were created to respond to the new regulation which will govern the single window, a regulation tabled in September 2023 and enacted in May 2024. The single window planned for fall 2024 was postponed to fall 2025.

3. She also protests against the excessive priority given to the children of employees of companies that have a partnership with a daycare rather than to neighborhood families.