Daycares: Quebec wants to end admissions based on religion

Quebec Family Minister Suzanne Roy introduces a bill on childcare at the Quebec National Assembly, Thursday March 27, 2025. (The Canadian Press/Jacques Boissinot)

The Quebec government is overhauling the admissions policies for subsidized daycare centres (CPEs) to eliminate selection based on language, culture, or religion.

The Minister for Families, Suzanne Roy, has just tabled a bill to introduce a single “national and uniform” admissions policy for subsidized childcare centres. The minister said that an inventory had revealed nearly 2,000 admission policies.

If the legislation is adopted, “only six prioritization criteria, based on the principles of equal opportunities, social diversity and work-study-family balance, would be allowed.”

Additionally, only 50 per cent of a daycare’s spots could be prioritized.

These six criteria concern children:

• with special needs
• living in socio-economic hardship;
• whose parent is enrolled in an educational establishment;
• whose parent is employed by a particular employer;
• whose parents reside in a given local municipality;
• who are Indigenous or have an Indigenous parent.

The government will also ban material designed to teach a religious belief, dogma or practice.

“These changes will reinforce the principles of secularism in government-funded childcare services, and I think that at the same time, they will also encourage a social mix among children,’ the minister said at a news briefing on Thursday.

The government’s initiative follows a report in La Presse revealing that 36 subsidized childcare centres in Montreal were selecting children on the basis of religious or ethnic criteria, among other things.

Non-subsidized childcare centres will not be subject to the new legislation. The minister admits that subsidized childcare centres could forego public funds in order to avoid being subject to the new Quebec rules.

“It’s possible, but then they won’t have access to reduced-fee spaces because it’s clear that, as a government, we want our state to be secular.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French March 27, 2025.