Feminist Mom in Montreal: How to get a spot in a $7 a day daycare

We have subsidized daycares in Quebec that charge $7 a day. That’s fantastic. A $7 daycare is a wonderful lifeline for low-income families. But how do you get a spot in one?

If you’re a parent in Montreal, you know how long the waiting lists are. They can be anywhere from two to four years long. Some people put their names on waiting lists as soon as they find out that they’re pregnant. They call the daycares up and say, “Okay, I peed on a stick, can I put my name on the waiting list please?”

I recently found myself in a difficult position when I decided that I was going back to school. I had my son’s name on waiting lists in my neighbourhood, but now I’m moving to a different town to be closer to my school. This was not something that I had anticipated when I was pregnant, so I was not on any of the waiting lists there. I put my son on the waiting lists for the $7 daycares in the area before I had even received my acceptance letter. It looked like there was absolutely no way that my son would get into one of these daycares before I started school in September.

I started looking for private and home daycares. A lot of them seem to charge $25-35 a day, but there is a tax credit available for people who are unable to find a spot in a subsidized daycare. All of the non-subsidized daycares that I found were also full.

So what’s a single mom returning to school supposed to do? How do you find a daycare?

I went to the CLSC and asked to speak with a social worker. A nurse spoke with me and I told her about my situation. She said that she would speak to the social worker who works with the daycares and get back to me. She called me back today and told me that the social worker had found a spot for my son in a $7 a day home daycare close to my school.

Some of the $7 a day daycares are required to keep emergency spots open. The daycare directors are not allowed to fill these spots without a reference from another organization such as the CLSC. If you are desperate for daycare and low-income, you may be eligible for one of these emergency spots. I strongly encourage you to see a social worker or a nurse at your local CLSC if this is your situation. The CLSC has many resources that are there to help people; use these resources.

Since we’re on the subject of daycares, I visited Whiteside Taylor in Baie-D’Urfé last week. Whiteside Taylor is another $7 a day daycare. It’s in a beautiful location and it looks great, but it has a four to five year waiting list. The director wants to open another daycare; she has the funding and she’s ready to go. The only roadblocks for this new daycare opening are politicians. If you live in the West Island and you think that the director of Whiteside Taylor should be allowed to open another daycare, contact this person and tell him:

Geoffrey Kelley
Place Scotia
620, boulevard Saint-Jean
Bureau 206
Pointe-Claire, Quebec
H94 3K2
Telephone: (514) 697-7663
Fax: (514) 697-6499
gkelley@assnat.qc.ca

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Crazy Bitches R Us: Vote for our definition of crazy bitch

After seeing the other less flattering definitions of "crazy bitch" defined on the online urban dictionary site, I got jealous that OUR definition was not included. So I added it. I just checked, and its it’s up. If you want to pop by and make it your favourite definition of a "crazy bitch" just pop by at http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=crazy%20bitch&page=2 and click on the h…

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Haldimand's Unheard Voice: Haldimand "Community Support Services Responds to Haldimand County Flip Flop Decision"

Service centres weigh in

By Cheryl Beemer, Sandy Clark, Paul Dishke, Julie Fleet, Kim Fleming, Don Henning, Nancy Legere, Bil Lofthouse and Larry Williamson, The board of directors, CSCHN

Letters
May 19, 2010

On behalf of the thousands of clients we serve annually and the hard-working and dedicated staff of the not-for-profit Community Support Centre of Haldimand-Norfolk, (CSCHN) we wanted to say shame on Haldimand County Council- and especially Mayor Marie Trainer and Councillor Buck Sloat- for their recent flip-flop on emergency funding to our agency and the Salvation Army.

Passing a 5-2 motion in favour of funding one week- in the presence of representatives from our two agencies and with assurances that all questions had been answered to ensure an informed decision- and one week later playing what appears to be election-year politics at the expense of our clients- is unconscionable. Not only did these elected officials pull the rug out from under our agencies with ridiculous excuses that had already been addressed, they did so when no one from our two agencies was present to respond to these concerns.

The impact of this decision is that our Centre will have to reduce already-skeletal staffing and service by the fall, and possibly close by the end of the year.

Our two small, not-for-profit agencies- which receive virtually no ongoing government funding- provide residents and families of our County with essential and emergency services to help support them through difficult and unusually stressful times. Our community has had more than its fair share of hard times in the past four years, and Council has completely washed its hands when it comes to recognizing that exceptional increase in need, choosing to do nothing about it and preferring instead to blame the province for not doing enough.

We beg to differ: the province has already shown that it has limited time for Haldimand County. It is absolutely Council’s responsibility to take the time to understand and respond to the changing needs of its residents, including going beyond simply funding ‘mandated human services’ (through the Haldimand-Norfolk Health and Social Services Department).

Since 2006, the CSCHN has seen a 200% increase in the need for essential services (e.g. food, housing, clothing), job search assistance and counselling. We have worked with many of our on-site agency collaborators (including the Caledonia & District Food Bank, Community Addiction and Mental Health Services, Haldimand-Norfolk R.E.A.C.H., Haldimand & Norfolk Women’s Services, Helping Hands for Haldimand, the Dunnville Salvation Army and others) to meet those exceptional needs.

As well during that time, we have received some one-time support from the provincial government (specifically related to the land claim dispute). In the past four years, Haldimand has benefitted from millions of dollars of additional provincial funding to support our region. However, the County, in its infinite wisdom, has chosen to invest all of that additional money directly into infrastructure, not people.

In early February, the CSCHN’s volunteer board of directors approached Haldimand County with a request for $50,000 in emergency funding and the desire to work with the County to more effectively lobby the provincial and federal governments to increase funding for local health, social and community services such as ours. We suggested that the Salvation Army- located at the other end of the County and providing a comparable service to ours- be considered in this exceptional request.

During the course of two months, our staff provided Council with a detailed budget of how the monies requested would be spent, pages of rationale regarding the community need and answered dozens of questions related to the legitimacy of our request, the fairness of providing funding to one agency over another, how we do business, our ability to ensure these monies would actually go towards helping our fellow neighbours and more. In the end, it appears politics won out instead of policy.

Mayor Trainer and Councillor Sloat—who had originally voted in favour of the funding—chose to play fast and loose with the fortunes of our clients, implying that since the CSCHN couldn’t guarantee that all of the $50,000 would benefit only Haldimand County residents (by our own admission, approximately 2% of our 22,000 annual client visits come from communities neighbouring Haldimand) they couldn’t support the request.

Councillor Don Ricker added insult to injury, questioning the integrity of our two organizations by saying we “could use the money as we wish.” We would be interested to hear what Councillor Ricker thinks we’re going to use the money for, if not for our clients.

Those of us who believe that this is a caring community—and want to ensure this continues to be the case—might want to keep this in mind at election time.

http://www.sachem.ca/opinions/article/210420

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