credit: saviezvousque.net (AI image) Imagine for a moment. You are desperately looking for a place in daycare. Right next to your home, there is a small chair available. It is waiting for you. However, it will remain empty for weeks, even a month and a half. Absurd? Yet this is the Kafkaesque reality currently faced by many daycare center directors. The designated culprit: the brand-new government registration portal. Launched in December to replace « La Place 0-5 » and managed by the American giant Salesforce, this system was supposed to simplify everyone’s life. The result? Panic has set in as they try to manage the files of 250,000 children. Frédéric Lamarche, assistant director of the Viroulu daycare center in downtown Montreal, still can’t believe it. Before, it took him two or three days to fill a spot. Recently? « It took me a month and a half, » he laments. Sébastien Breton, from the La Ruche daycare center, echoes this sentiment, saying he has « never seen anything like it » in his twelve-year career.
When the computer decides everything (and gets it wrong)
credit: saviezvousque.net (AI image) But why does it take so long? That’s where it gets complicated. The new algorithm imposes a disconcerting administrative rigidity. Principals can no longer contact several parents at the same time. They have to follow the list, one name at a time. If the child’s age doesn’t match exactly—sometimes within a few days of changing age groups—or if parents are looking for a place for siblings, the system blocks them.
Worse still, there are bugs. Sabine Tutellier-de Peyrelongue, director of a daycare center in the city center, says that the algorithm regularly suggests children… who already attend her facility!
While she runs back and forth to the administration to report the error and wait for a new name, the place remains vacant. « When the algorithm crashes, there’s nothing I can do in my office, » she sighs. For parents, it’s completely baffling. Marjorie Peyric, from the organization Ma place au travail, points out that there are more than 30,000 children on the waiting list. Leaving places empty because of « paperwork » is simply « illogical. »
A dialogue of the deaf with the ministry
credit: saviezvousque.net (IA image) Faced with this logistical chaos, what does the government say? « Everything is fine. » Or almost. The office of Family Minister Kateri Champagne Jourdain describes the rollout as a « success » and reports only a dozen complaints, all of which are being resolved. Carl Renaud, assistant deputy minister, downplays the problems. For him, these are « minor challenges » associated with a period of transition. He even passes the buck to daycare directors, suggesting that they have not properly updated their files to explain the bugs affecting children who are already enrolled. There is no question of relaxing the rules for the time being: the system is here to stay and will centralize admissions in order to avoid any discrimination (religious or ethnic criteria, or overly rapid selection).
However, the bill continues to climb. The project, initially estimated at $9.7 million, has now reached $12.6 million.
Fear of the May « wall »
credit: saviezvousque.net (AI image)
While the situation is already tense, the worst may be yet to come. May and June are a critical period when groups reform for the start of the school year, with older children moving on to kindergarten. Sabine Tutellier-de Peyrelongue does not hide her concern: « We are going to have a very, very big problem. »
Frédéric Lamarche compares this new portal to « a nuclear weapon » used to solve problems that did not require such force. The Quebec Association of Daycare Centers (AQCPE), through Geneviève Blanchard, is urgently calling on the ministry to rectify the situation and, above all, not to financially penalize daycare centers whose places remain empty because of the system. Because yes, subsidies depend on occupancy rates.
The directors are simply asking for a little flexibility and for their voices to be heard. As Sébastien Breton sums it up: « If I had a magic wand, it would be: listen to us. »
According to the source: ici.radio-canada.ca Created by humans, assisted by AI.
