How to Open a Daycare Centre in Alberta
Open a licensed daycare centre in Alberta: the facility-based licence application, the information session, staff certification levels, space and ratio rules, and the affordability-grant route.
How to Open a Daycare Centre in Quebec
Quebec splits centre care in two: a CPE (centre de la petite enfance) permit goes only to a non-profit or cooperative with a parent-majority board and a subsidy grant, while a garderie permit can go to a person or business for a single facility that proves feasibility, relevance, and quality.
Applies in: Quebec
The short answer
Quebec does not have one daycare licence. It has two permits under the Educational Childcare Act, issued by the Minister through the Ministère de la Famille, and the right one depends on who the operator is. A childcare centre permit — the CPE route, from centre de la petite enfance — is reserved for a non-profit legal person or a cooperative, with a parent-heavy board and subsidies granted by the Minister. A day care centre permit — the garderie route — can go to a person or a business, for a single facility, on proof of the project's feasibility, relevance, and quality. Caring for more than six children without one of these permits, or without recognition as a home childcare provider, is not allowed.
Quebec names are given in French once and in English after that. This guide covers centre-based care only — recognized home childcare is a separate system, linked below.
Step 1: Choose the permit by the operator, not the building
The Act draws the line at the applicant:
- Childcare centre (CPE). A non-profit legal person or a cooperative only. The applicant must be granted subsidies by the Minister and hold no other permit under the Act. A private education institution cannot receive one at all.
- Day care centre (garderie). A person — an individual or a legal person, including a commercial operator — for educational childcare in a single facility. A school service centre, a school board, or a municipality cannot receive one.
Most business plans that arrive as "open a daycare in Quebec" are garderie plans. Most subsidized-space plans are CPE plans, and they start with incorporation as a non-profit or cooperative, not with a lease.
Step 2: Build the CPE board, if that is your route
A childcare centre's board of directors is regulated in the Act itself:
- at least seven members,
- at least two thirds of them parents who are clients or future clients of the centre,
- at least one member from the business sector or the institutional, social, education, or community sector, and
- no member related to another.
Recruit the board before the application, because the board is part of what is being permitted. A non-profit shell with a placeholder board does not meet the section — the parents on it must be the centre's own clients or future clients.
Step 3: Prove the project — feasibility, relevance, quality
The garderie test is stated in section 11 of the Act. The applicant undertakes to provide educational childcare in a single facility, undertakes to ensure the children's health, safety, and well-being, and shows the feasibility, relevance, and quality of the project to the Minister's satisfaction. Relevance is judged against need: the Minister may refuse a childcare centre permit that does not address the needs and priorities the Minister identifies, weighing the permits already issued, the applications waiting, the subsidies available, and the relevance of subsidizing the applicant on the proposed territory.
One shortcut exists and it is not a persuasion technique: an applicant who was granted new subsidized childcare spaces in a ministerial allocation is deemed to satisfy the feasibility, relevance, and quality condition. Everyone else argues it in the application.
Step 4: Clear the impediment checks
Quebec's screening concept is the empêchement — an impediment related to the abilities and conduct required to work in a childcare centre. The regulation requires an applicant to have the impediment investigation carried out for:
- its directors and shareholders, where the applicant is a legal person, or the applicant personally, where it is a natural person,
- and to give the Minister the consent to the investigation and the resulting attestation — either that no impediment exists, or the information that may establish one, for the Minister's assessment.
The duty continues after opening. A permit holder must ensure that no person of full age working in the facility during the hours childcare is provided — staff, trainees, and volunteers who are present regularly — has an impediment. Build the check into hiring, because a centre that discovers an impediment after a hire has a staffing and a compliance problem at the same time.
Step 5: Operate inside the permit
The permit states the holder's name and address, the address of the main establishment and of each facility, and the capacity it authorizes. Two hard limits follow:
- No more children in a facility than the number stated on the permit.
- No childcare for periods exceeding 48 consecutive hours.
Only a permit holder may use a name that includes the term childcare centre or day care centre — so the branding waits for the permit too, not just the opening.
What the opened pages do not state
The Act and regulation pages opened state that permit fees are determined by regulation, but do not publish a current dollar amount for a new childcare centre or day care centre permit application in a form this guide can quote, so no fee figure is printed. The pages also do not state staff-to-child ratios by age group or a processing time for a permit application, so this guide states neither — both belong to the regulation and the Ministère's application materials for the specific project.
Related guides:
- How to Start a Daycare in Canada — the national map of centre and home routes, province by province.
- How to Open a Daycare Centre in Ontario — Ontario's single ministry licence, the contrast to Quebec's two-permit split.
- How to Open a Daycare Centre in British Columbia — the health authority facility licence model.
- How to Start a Home Daycare in Quebec — recognized home childcare through a coordinating office, the route this guide is not about.
- How to Open a Daycare Centre in New Brunswick — the centre route in a neighbouring province, for comparing its licence with Quebec's two permits.
Opening a daycare centre in Quebec, in five steps
- Choose the permit that matches the operatorA childcare centre permit is reserved for a non-profit legal person or a cooperative; a day care centre permit can be issued to a person, including a business.
- Build the board if you want the CPE routeA childcare centre's board has at least seven members, at least two thirds of them parents who are clients or future clients of the centre.
- Prove feasibility, relevance, and qualityA day care centre applicant must show the feasibility, relevance, and quality of the project to the Minister's satisfaction.
- Clear the impediment checksDirectors, shareholders, staff, trainees, and regular volunteers are checked for impediments related to working in a childcare centre.
- Operate inside the permit's numberA permit holder may not provide childcare to more children than the number stated on the permit, or for periods over 48 consecutive hours.
Questions people ask
What is the difference between a CPE and a garderie in Quebec?
Who runs it. A CPE (centre de la petite enfance) belongs to a non-profit legal person or a cooperative, and its permit comes with subsidies granted by the Minister. A garderie can belong to an ordinary person or a business. Both permits are issued under the Educational Childcare Act. Recognized home childcare is a third thing again: it runs through a coordinating office, not a centre permit.
Who can hold a childcare centre (CPE) permit?
A non-profit legal person or a cooperative. Its board needs at least seven members. Two thirds of them, at minimum, are parents whose children attend the centre now or will attend it, and one member comes from the business world or from an institutional, social, education, or community organization. Two more conditions sit in the Act: the Minister must grant the applicant subsidies, and the applicant can hold no other permit under the Act. A private education institution is barred outright.
What must a garderie applicant prove?
Section 11 of the Act sets the test. The project has to look feasible, relevant, and good enough to satisfy the Minister, and the care itself happens in one facility only. There is a shortcut, though it is not one an applicant can arrange: anyone who received new subsidized spaces in a ministerial allocation is treated as having already passed that part of the test.
Can I care for children without a permit in Quebec?
Up to six children, yes. Past six, no. The Act is blunt about the line: beyond six children you hold a centre permit or you are a home childcare provider recognized by an accredited coordinating office. A centre is past the line by definition, so the permit comes before the first child, not after the seventh.
What background checks does Quebec require?
Quebec screens for what the regulation calls an impediment: something in a person's record that bears on the abilities and conduct the job needs. For a corporate applicant the investigation covers the directors and the shareholders, and the consent and the attestation go to the Minister with the file. The duty does not end at hiring, either. Trainees and regular volunteers of full age who work in the facility during childcare hours fall under the same rule.
How many children can a Quebec centre take?
Whatever number is printed on its permit. That number is a ceiling, not a target the centre can round up on a busy day. The Act adds one more hard limit, on time rather than headcount: no childcare for stretches longer than 48 consecutive hours.
Sources
- LégisQuébec, Educational Childcare Act — the two permit routes, the CPE board composition and subsidy conditions, the section 11 garderie test, the six-child limit, the permit contents, and the capacity and 48-hour limits.
- [LégisQuébec, Educational Childcare Regulation](https://www.legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/fr/document/rc/s-4.1.1, r. 2/20240627?langCont=en) — the impediment investigation for directors, shareholders, and applicants, and the continuing duty for staff, trainees, and regular volunteers.