A lack of affordable child care during weekends and evenings leaves Jasmine May Dilio, a single parent of two children, with limited job opportunities.
Dilio, who lives in Montreal, has worked in factories and as a cleaner but has had difficulty getting and keeping jobs over the years due to the jobs extending into the evening.
“I always have to say that I can’t go to this job or that job or I can’t take this job or that job because it doesn’t align with the hours for my kids,” said Dilio.
Last year, the Quebec government introduced a $45-million pilot project to subsidize child care during evenings and weekends to make the service more affordable, especially for single parents and the working class.
The ministry of family also promises to expand public child-care centres and subsidize all private daycares in the province.
Quebec daycare is pricey for parents working atypical hours
Min Lehoux, founder of Maison Kinder Montréal, a 24/7 private daycare service in Montreal, says evening and weekend daycare have always been popular among professionals with atypical job hours, such as airline and healthcare workers. But off-hour child care is pricey, putting it out of reach for many low-income parents.
“It’s $100 a day [including evening child care] — it’s hard for them. For 24 hours [child care], it’s $150,” said Lehoux. A worker earning Quebec’s minimum wage of $15.25 would need to work a 10-hour shift to earn $152.50 before tax.
In contrast, Lehoux and her partner own another Quebec daycare that exclusively offers weekday, day-time hours and is publicly subsidized. They charge parents the standard, subsidized rate of $8.85 per day.
While Quebec does offer a 67 to 78 per cent refundable tax credit for private child care expenses, parents must pay the full cost upfront for the service.
‘Do you want us to live?’
Lehoux understands first-hand the struggles of a single parent. In 2001, she immigrated to Canada from China and had difficulty finding work due to the lack of child-care options for her son.
She remembers being turned down from a government workshop on how to find a job in Quebec because she could not find child care for her child.
“I was so shocked. I said, ‘Do you want us to live?’” said Lehoux. “‘You want me to just take care of my children, and we’re going to live without income?’”
She ended up finding a Quebec daycare a couple of hours from her home so she could complete the government training. Once there, she refused offers to enrol for social assistance.
“How come nobody can help me with my children? Then I could do the things necessary to make a living for both of us.” she said. “It was hard.”
Lehoux’s experience was what inspired her to open child-care centres to fit the needs of parents. She supports the government making atypical hours child care more accessible for families, especially single parents in the province.
Business owners favour off-hour childcare
Almost a third of single-person households in Quebec are low-income, a statistique du Québec report found in 2019, versus only eight per cent of households with two or more people. Additionally, a Canadian Income Survey by Statistics Canada found nearly half of people aged 16 and up in the province earn less than $30,000 after tax.
The pilot project comes as Quebec faces a severe labour shortage, with businesses having trouble hiring and keeping employees. In 2022, job vacancies in the province peaked at 254,475, according to Statistics Canada, a 100.8 per cent increase over the fourth quarter in 2019.
Seven out of 10 business owners are in favour of child-care services with atypical working hours, said Michelle Auger, senior policy analyst at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. In consultation with the Quebec government, the CFIB Quebec legislative team said the pilot project would help small businesses retain employees.
Quebec will release the findings of the pilot project next year.
