EXCERPTS

Parents who will not send their child back to a daycare when they reopen will indeed have to pay a fee if they want to hold their child’s place until Sept, 1, Minister of Families Mathieu Lacombe said on Friday, reversing an earlier statement.

On Monday, the minister had assured parents that if they keep their children home, “Your place will be maintained until Sept. 1 without your having to pay any fees.”

In a message posted on Facebook on Friday evening, Lacombe said that he should “rather have said” that the parents “will not have to pay before the return to normal operation, this spring or this summer, when we allow 100 per cent return of the children.”

“The compensation we will offer to daycare centres, subsidized or unsubsidized daycares as well as home childcare providers, is structured this way,” he explained. “This is also what we have already given as directives to the network.”

The daycares are scheduled to reopen on May 11 outside greater Montreal and May 19 in Montreal.