Quebec’s $7 day-care program being probed for possible corruption
Posted Dec 1, 2011 04:54:00 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
MONTREAL – Quebec’s iconic $7-a-day public daycare program is under investigation for possible corruption.
The province’s new anti-corruption body has issued a statement saying it will examine the program.
The announcement comes after the province’s auditor general reported irregularities in the awarding of contracts for 18,000 subsidized daycare spaces.
The public daycare program created a decade ago by a Parti Quebecois government is a source of pride to many policy-makers in the province.
It inspired an ill-fated attempt by Paul Martin’s federal Liberals to create a similar system across Canada several years ago.
But the program has become a source of increasing controversy in recent months.
The man once responsible for administering the program, ex-cabinet minister Tony Tomassi, has been slapped with unrelated fraud charges.
Tomassi had, in the weeks before his forced resignation from cabinet, been accused of cronyism in the awarding of contracts.
He was forced to resign amid allegations he used a personal credit card supplied by a private company that received government business.
