No union dues on the backs of our children!
Montréal, November 29, 2017 - The leader of the Conservative Party of Québec, Adrien Pouliot, sent a letter to Family Minister Luc Fortin today, urging him to turn a deaf ear to unions and interest groups that have undertaken a media campaign of smear and fear attacking non-regulated private family daycare owners.
Thus, according to these organizations which include the Fédération de la santé et des services sociaux (FSSS-CSN), private family daycare centres, if they are not forced to be regulated under Bill 143 now under review (An Act to improve the educational quality and foster the harmonious development of educational childcare services) would be places where our children are at risk, both physically, mentally and emotionally. These groups have taken the audacity to the point of comparing the licensing requirements of animal shelters with those of non-regulated family daycare centres. MP for Joliette Véronique Hivon, spokesperson of the official opposition on family, is in cahoots with them. She went so far as to insinuate that private family daycare centre owners, if they are not regulated, could tolerate cannabis smokers in front of the children. What, moms will smoke pot in front of their own little ones? What contempt for all devoted moms who, in addition to keeping their own children, welcome those of others at home!
This media guerrilla is shocking and at the very least counter-intuitive for organizations that have championed such feminist causes as pay equity and the status of women. Instead of these great ideals, private family daycare centre owners are told: woman, submit or be poor!
"I believe that these groups may not be as motivated as they suggest by the interests of children but rather that corporate interests are also at stake here. Thus, when reading the headline of a message from the FSSS-CSN “These 40,000 children who escape us", one wonders if the union is referring to the unions dues that are escaping them because of unorganized competition from private sector daycare centres? When we know that the public daycare centres are in decline compared to private services and that they will be even more so with kindergarten at four years old, it is not surprising that the unions are trying to thwart the competition!” wrote Mr. Pouliot.
Mr. Pouliot added that private family daycare centre environments are not clandestine businesses. Nor are they "baby mills", as would have us believe the disinformation campaign of these interest groups. On the contrary, the presence of these moms, who already babysit their little darlings, share their love with their daily visitors, border them for naps with the same tenderness as they do for their own children and instill a sense of family in a stable, warm and personal environment, offers a unique figure of attachment critical to the children’s development and, added Mr. Pouliot, it is important that minister Fortin ensures that Bill 143 does not jeopardize the hundreds of women-owned Quebec SMEs offering those services.
For information : Louis-Charles Fortier, Communications Vice-President
(514) 978-3410
www.particonservateurquebec.org