Creation of CPE: the Ministry of the Family is struggling to follow the parade

The association has no doubts about the will of Minister Mathieu Lacombe when he promises to create 10,000 subsidized places this year to make up for the delay accumulated on his targets for Large construction site for families.

But without risk taking of the Ministère de la Famille and without more flexibility machine behind it, the government’s objective seems unrealistic in the eyes of Geneviève Bélisle, director general of theAQCPEQuebec Association of Early Childhood Centers.

According to a portrait of the situation drawn up by his team, the places promised by Minister Lacombe in 2022 represent 253 CPEEarly childhood Center to be completed by the end of the year. Of the number, 65-70% are either critical or at risk due to long approval times.

” I am not very confident that these projects will materialize for families this fall. »

Belt and straps

While some files are progressing well, several others, sometimes approved almost ten years ago, are still in the preliminary phase or in the design phase. Promoters are waiting from go to buy [des terrains]from go for plans, go for the budget.

But these go don’t come. That’s been the last year. […] I had some CPEEarly childhood Center who lost opportunities because they did not have the money before going to the notarylaments Ms. Bélisle.

The budgetary issue would also play a major role in the problems encountered on the ground. According to the AQCPE, the Ministry of Family’s infrastructure funding program must be reviewed to adapt to an overheated construction market.

If only for construction costs, there is no longer a project that fits all the boxes of the government. All projects become exceptional, then all projects require higher approvals in the machinery of government,” explains Ms. Bélisle.

The association is calling for more flexibility to allow sponsors to get approvals faster. Currently, she says, the government is showing exaggerated precautions, especially if it wishes to achieve its objectives. Sooner or later he will have to to take decisions.

Obsolete criteria

The problems noted by the AQCPE apply in particular to the projects retained by the government between 2013 and 2019. These projects will have to unlock, she says, if Quebec really wants to deliver 10,000 places this year.

However, many of them are caught in the rust and tiredness begins to settle, worries Geneviève Bélisle. To achieve the target, the construction works would have to start now.

Over time, she finds that certain administrative criteria, remnants of the past, complicate the task of promoters. The latter come up against, according to her, a Ministry of the Family that is too cautious and too rigid.

We are doing the biggest development phase of CPEEarly childhood Center that Quebec has known in terms of early childhood education services, but the department maintains its old criteria of the timelaments Ms. Bélisle.

” We do not want to take risks in a real estate market that is overheated so much that, by dint of asking for studies, studies and studies, we are falling behind and ultimately increasing construction costs. »

Delayed projects

She cites the land purchase process as an example.

According to the requirements of the Ministère de la Famille, the history of each lot must first be checked. Once this first step has been completed, Quebec asks for an environmental study to be carried out, including core drilling. If everything is acceptable, the proponent proceeds to the next step of the geotechnical study.

We have three projects in Mirabel that are overdue. There, lately we couldn’t have the go of the ministry to carry out the geotechnical studies, so these projects have just taken six months of delayreports Ms. Bélisle.

However, these studies are not used to determine whether a site is suitable or not, but rather to choose what type of foundation we will have to use. All these steps come, she says, from an old desire of the government to prioritize construction on slabs in order to save a few tens of thousands of dollars per project.

In today’s market, Ms. Bélisle believes that the costs generated by the delays caused by these blockages are greater. It costs us more in public funds.

She is nevertheless more confident for the projects of CPEEarly childhood Center approved between 2020 and 2022, taking advantage of a clearer and more predictable timeline. The delivery of these places is however not planned before 2023 or 2024, and cannot therefore contribute to reaching the target for this year.

Still too many steps

Minister Lacombe himself railed against bureaucratic red tape in his department last year. To correct the situation, he reduced the number of stages in the development process from 17 to 9. CPEEarly childhood Center.

But this optimization obviously did not have all the expected effects, because other factors continue to slow down the creation of places. Quebec had to admit last month that it was behind schedule to create 37,000 new spaces at $8.70 a day by 2025.

Minister Mathieu Lacombe indeed confirmed that the targets set for 2021-2022 had been missed. The government hoped to create 5,000 to 7,000 places between April 1, 2021 and March 31. In the end, 3,201 subsidized places were delivered.

Despite improvements, there are still a lot of administrative stepstestifies Geneviève Bélisle.

His association is now reaching out to help the Ministry of the Family to to land projects. As we can see, the advisers [du ministère] are well intentioned, she points out. But in his opinion, the teams have too few staff and don’t have not all technical knowledge required for such a large development project.

The AQCPE proposes to the government to create a project office where all the requests for approval could converge, with a dedicated and specialized team. The association itself has set up an infrastructure service to help its members navigate through the different stages.

Ms. Bélisle says she did not feel any interest from the government. Not from the minister, but from the ministryshe insists. I wish we could team up more together. The AQCPE invites the ministry to do more trust network players to improve processes.

Continuous improvement

On the side of the Ministry of the Family, we ensure to be proactive in adapting the criteria for the development of subsidized places. The Department prioritizes the optimization of processes and strives to continuously improve its methodswrites a spokesperson by email.

However, it recognizes that the construction market adds stages of approval, as denounced by the community. It is possible that the increase in construction costs influences the stages of approval of projects when in particular the cost of a project exceeds the scales of financing.

In addition to construction overheating, Quebec discusses the lack of manpower and the management of the COVID-19 pandemic to explain the delays in its construction.