Quebec removes visa kids from daycares
Quebec is proceeding with an almost Trumpian policy: the removal of children of visa workers from subsidized daycare. That these workers often can’t afford any other form of daycare, that their work is important – even to other daycares! – is clearly of no importance to the CAQ.
bob 13:58 on 2025-07-22 Permalink
The CAQ is a party of and for racists.
Notable: the Quebec government gets $1.2 billion of its $2.6 billion budget for (now) $9.35 daycare from Ottawa despite opting out of the federal program (CWELCC), yet still blames the feds for their inability to fund daycare completely.
Quebec actually went to court last year to prevent asylum seekers from accessing the program, but the court said no, because ti is discriminatory, and therefore unconstitutional. But the CAQ and other racist nationalists regularly wipe their asses with Quebec’s own Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, so what do they care about what a court has to say? Anyways, Legault blamed the “federal” court for preventing “citizens of Quebec” from accessing the system, and the CAQ and the PQ blame the federal government for underfunding the system whose budget they themselves set.
A net $1.4 billion for subsidized daycare – and $10 billion for a corrupt airport facelift, $10 billion for a corrupt river crossing, $10 billion here, $10 billion there, all vacuumed up by their legalized mafia of finance, engineering, and construction firms.
As Lyndon Johnson said: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
Ephraim 14:11 on 2025-07-22 Permalink
@Bob, you think that it’s just the CAQ? Outside of Montreal (and even inside it), the level of xenophobia in this province is sometimes astounding. I mean 54% of people in Quebec (in a poll) expressed discomfort with a woman wearing a veil. It has nothing to do with the CAQ, these sentiments are long and hard in Quebec. Look at this sign from Val David… https://histoirevaldavid.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/LES-COMMUNAUTE%CC%81S-JUIVES-DE-VAL-1.pdf
walkerp 14:59 on 2025-07-22 Permalink
It has much to do with the CAQ. They came to power on a false centrist campaign and a promise of better economic management (“homme d’affaires” lol ) but since have doubled down on the desperate ethno-nationalism of the PQ before them. Yes, there is a strong strain of racism and xenophobia in Quebec but there is also a strong tradition of progressive and inclusive politics as well. The party in power has the ability to steer the province in one direction or other. The CAQ has gone hard on the racism part (and the corruption and pork as bob well describes above).
Racism is alive and well across Canada. I don’t really understand how you are trying to excuse the CAQ by saying Quebeckers are just racist.
Ephraim 09:44 on 2025-07-23 Permalink
@walkerp – I’ve lived with this xenophobia all my life. It was here under the PQ, under the Liberals and under the CAQ. It’s just different flavours of it. Yes, the Liberals are the most progressive of it, but as soon as you leave the Island, you see more and more of it.
Joey 13:06 on 2025-07-23 Permalink
Ephraim, perhaps you should think of the CAQ as the party specifically of these people. It didn’t invent Quebec’s particular brand of xenophobia, it just realized it could go far appealing only to those people. The business elite and the media fell for it a couple of times, but the jig is up and it’s clear that they only have another 15 months to run wild.
At least the PQ made appeals to “cultural communities”; Lucien Bouchard event went to the Centaur!
Robert H 14:28 on 2025-07-23 Permalink
So now, there will be children who lose a comforting part of their daily routine, and parents, already struggling, who will not be able to work or will have to hunt for a new job because they’ve been deprived of subsidized daycare. If or when they become clients of social welfare, certain pundits and politicians will complain of how Quebec cannot afford these leeches on the public purse, these undesirables who come to Quebec to live off hardworking gens du pays. I’m disgusted with Legault and the CAQ, but I still don’t believe Quebec is any more racist than the rest of Canada.
I tend to agree with Walkerp that the CAQ is tapping a xenophobic, nativist strain that can be found across Canada. As a member of a visible minority, I feel comfortable in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, even Quebec City, but in the regions and small towns, my guard does go up a bit. It’s a reflex, but I wouldn’t call myself paranoid, just careful. And the cities aren’t paradise, but neither are they the hotbeds of tension I’ve experienced in the United States. As in so many other aspects, Quebec’s brand of xenophobia has a distinct ethno-nationalism not found elsewhere in Canada, but the reactionary racist bigotry behind it can be found across the country.
It’s even more complex. As Walkerp suggested, Quebec does have a strong image of progressivism and inclusivity, though this sort of news can make us forget about that. Quebec is a frequent target of conservative critics on both sides of the border for its socialist, “woke” tendencies. You’ll see denunciations in Canadian and U.S. rightwing media lamenting Quebec’s anti-capitalist stance and communist oriented labour fixation. So what is this place? Canada’s version of deep red Missisippi, or is it true blue Massachusetts?
Tim S. 15:46 on 2025-07-23 Permalink
Robert H: it’s not logically incompatible for a closed community to be socialisty. A sense of “we’ll look after each other, but be mistrustful of outsiders” (real or perceived). Building a sense of solidarity with people who don’t look/sound like you is an ongoing challenge for the left.
Ian 11:26 on 2025-07-25 Permalink
I disagree, communism tends toward nationalism, socialism toward multiculturalism. Anarchosyndicalism only recognizes divisions based on labour roles & community building. It’s not as cut and dry as “Stalin committed the Holodomor, therefore”.