Quebec will allow school service centres to exceed hiring limits - if they stay on budget

The new education minister, Sonia LeBel, says she wants to “support” school service centres by allowing them to exceed their hiring limits if they stay within their budgets.

Radio-Canada revealed Wednesday morning that Minister LeBel will lift the hiring caps imposed on school service centres, but will ask them to stay within their budgets.

On X, LeBel explained that Quebec wants the rules to allow school service centres to “manage their resources without compromising services to students and within their budgets.”

“We will support them,” she said.

At the beginning of the summer, LeBel’s predecessor on the education file, Bernard Drainville, announced $570 million in cuts to the system.

The decision sparked an outcry in the school community and among the general public, prompting Drainville to backtrack and announce a $540 million reinvestment.

However, in order to access the funds, school service centres had to comply with a staffing cap, which prevented some of them from rehiring staff who had been laid off at the end of the last school year.

In September, Québec solidaire education spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois argued that LeBel should begin her term as education minister by “picking up the pieces” left by her predecessor.

“What’s the point of putting money into theory if, in practice, we impose a staffing cap that prevents schools from hiring speech therapists, remedial teachers, and (special education technicians) TES?” he argued.

- This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Oct. 1, 2025.