Quebec’s Daycare Program: A Flawed Policy Model finds that the province’s 20-year-old subsidized daycare program has produced skyrocketing costs along with worrying child development outcomes without eliminating wait times. Spending on a per-child basis—after adjusting for inflation—jumped 101.6 per cent since the program’s creation, from $4,874 in 1997 to $9,823 in 2016 (amounts in 2016 dollars).