Legault galvanized by rivals’ objections to CAQ’s pre-K plan
LAVAL After a weekend spent calmly reiterating promises and rallying supporters, a more combative François Legault emerged for the first time of the young campaign Sunday afternoon.
“I can’t believe it!” an animated Legault said during a campaign stop at a public market in Laval.
“I can’t get over Jean-François Lisée and Philippe Couillard’s lack of ambition,” he added. “Come on! We need more ambition for our children!”
Legault was reacting to both the Quebec Liberal Party and Parti Québécois’s panning of his party’s campaign promise to offer free pre-kindergarten to all fouryear-olds across Quebec.
The Coalition Avenir Québec figures the plan, which would cost $311 million per year, would free up 50,000 spots in daycares across the province within the next five years. Both Couillard and Lisée deemed the proposal unrealistic and unnecessary.
Legault said he believes having children in classrooms at a younger age can help detect learning disabilities earlier, making it possible to get them the support they need as soon as they need it. In turn, he said, studies have shown it would drive up graduation rates.
“I just don’t get it,” Legault repeated on Sunday, saying he feels both parties are downplaying the “importance and urgency” of the issue.
“In Ontario, within five years they were able to offer classrooms to all four year olds. How come we’re not able to do so in Quebec?”
Legault said $153 million would be spent on building the extra classrooms needed. As for staffing, the party would look into fast-track, transitional education options for daycare workers interested in becoming kindergarten teachers.
The CAQ leader, who had supported the idea before, made the campaign promise during a rally in Boucherville on Saturday.
On Sunday, Legault restated another pledge he made back in January: to offer a single, provincewide school-tax rate.
Under a CAQ government, the single rate would be 10.54 cents per $100 evaluation and apply across all school boards in Quebec’s 17 administrative regions.
The plan would cost $700 million over four years. Currently, taxpayers often pay different rates, even in the same municipality, depending on their school board.
“There’s a significant inequality,” Legault said from a campaign stop in Terrebonne. “People in Lanaudière pay, on average, $690 in school taxes, whereas right beside, in the Laurentians, they won the Liberal lottery and pay $269 for a house with the same value.”
Under the CAQ’s plan, for example, someone in Montreal with a home evaluated at $280,000 would pay $186 less in school tax per year. Someone in Mauricie could save up to $520.
During the 2014 campaign, Legault had promised to abolish the school tax altogether. Asked about the change in position on Sunday, he said it’s “a question of balance” and needing to choose between which measures to take during a first CAQ mandate.
Legault spent the weekend campaigning in ridings around Montreal but didn’t hold a single campaign event in the city. Nonetheless, he said he’s confident 2018 is the year the CAQ, which has never won a seat on the island of Montreal, can make inroads in the city.
“There are 17 regions in Quebec and I’ll try to go in (all of them),” Legault said when asked of his early campaign choices, noting he was often in Montreal over the summer.
He cited the CAQ’s support of extending the Blue Line and a tramway connecting East-Montreal to downtown Montreal as examples of what makes his party’s program appealing to Montrealers.
“Montrealers want kindergarten at four years old, they want a family doctor who’s available when they ’re sick, they want us to create better-paying jobs, to reduce taxes and tariffs,” Legault said.
Asked about a comment Lisée made over the weekend — that a CAQ government wouldn’t represent Montreal well — Legault said he was “ready to take a gamble” with the PQ leader.
Come election night, he said, “I really think we’ll have more MNAs from the CAQ in Montreal than for the PQ.”
In Ontario, within five years they were able to offer classrooms to all four year olds. How come we’re not able to do so in Quebec?