A low-fee child care program for pre-school children began to be implemented in Quebec in September 1997. Based on earlier studies, we estimate that in 2008 this program induced about 69 700 more mothers (a 3.8 % increase) to hold jobs than if the province had instead continued to follow the traditional approach based mainly on tax incentives that is still in force in other Canadian provinces. We calculate that Quebec’s domestic income (GDP) was higher by about $ 5.1 billion (1.7 %) as a result. We then estimate the impact that the childcare program has had on direct government subsidies to childcare facilities, federal and provincial child care tax subsidies, and own-source government revenues and family transfers resulting from the increases in mothers’ employment income and GDP. On net, relatively to the traditional approach, we estimate that the Quebec program had a favorable impact of $ 919 million on government fiscal balances in 2008.