The Prime Minister has signed a deal with Quebec to provide the province with an extra $1.1 billion in child-care funding over the next five years.

The deal is distinct from daycare deals already signed with seven other provinces, in that the money comes with very few strings attached.

Quebec will still be accountable to its residents on how it spends the dollars. But, unlike other provinces, Quebec won't necessarily have to spend the cash directly on child care at all.

"The money is to be spent on the well-being of families," Minister of Social Development Ken Dryden said at a news conference in Montreal Friday, conceding that the funds could go toward education, child-assistance or even programs to help families better balance their home and work lives.

Quebec's daycare system -- provided at a cost to parents of just $7 a day, and to taxpayers of approximately $1 billion a year -- is already hailed as the most extensive system in the country.

But, with the system facing cutbacks of 20 per cent this year, many Quebec daycare operators were hoping Ottawa would insist the money go to them directly.

"We need the money just to survive, just to offer great daycare," daycare director Paul Lamarre told CTV, criticizing the deal as 'political'.

Unlike the other provinces already signed on to deals with Ottawa, Quebec demanded the final say in how the money gets spent -- and it won.

For advocates of a unified nationwide day-care program, that's a concern.

"If they are recognizing Quebec as a distinct society and having a different set of rules, they need to be explicit about that," Monica Lysick of the Childcare Advocacy Association of Canada told CTV.

Ahead of the announcement, Dryden said Quebec's bigger financial commitment to child care entitles it to "greater flexibility" in deciding how it's dispersed.

"One needs to respect where Quebec is," the minister told reporters after a cabinet meeting in Ottawa Thursday.

"And the fact is that, in our last reporting date which is 2002-2003, Quebec had invested about $1.2 billion in early learning and child care."

Dryden said the next highest investor in child care was Ontario at $500 million, followed by British Columbia at $98 million.

Prime Minister Paul Martin echoed his minister's remarks on Friday, telling reporters the deal with Quebec is an example of flexible federalism.

"If you're going to have a national program, you have to take into account the different situations in different provinces," Martin said.

That's good news to New Brunswick Premier Bernard Lord, at least, as he's complained efforts to reach a day-care deal with Ottawa have been stymied by the feds' inflexibility.

Lord says he now hopes his province can expect the same treatment as Quebec.

Besides New Brunswick, only Prince Edward Island and the territories are yet to sign a formal federal child-care pact.

As part of their federal budget, the Liberals have set aside $4.1 billion for the provinces to spend on child-care services over the next four years.