Posted at 5:00 a.m.
The premises of the early childhood center (CPE) Tortue stubborn were flooded by the deluge that fell on Tuesday in Montreal. Significant damage forced the management to find new temporary premises or to place its 65 children elsewhere and lay off its twenty employees.
“We are in a dead end situation,” says director Marie-Claude Gagnon.
According to her, the CPE, which welcomes children of student parents from the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM), will be closed for at least a month. The director is currently trying to find temporary premises, but the search is difficult given the number of children and the arrangements required by the Ministry of the Family.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
Marie-Claude Gagnon, Director of the Stubborn Turtle CPE
The latter does not have emergency funds and has not offered her any financial assistance to relocate, she says, so she can only rely on his insurance. In fact, the Ministry of Family advised her to transfer the children to other CPEs with available places and to lay off her employees, she laments. Since the children would change hands, the CPE would then lose its operating subsidies for this period, which Mr.me Gagnon appraises at $55,000.
If I take that option, I lose money and I lose my team.
Marie-Claude Gagnon, Director of the Stubborn Turtle CPE
In a context of labor shortage, the director fears that she will not be able to rehire her employees once her flooded premises can reopen.
Lack of preparation
“I think it doesn’t make a lot of sense that the Ministère de la Famille doesn’t have an emergency fund for situations like this,” exclaims Raphaël Crevier, lecturer at the UQAM and father of a 3-year-old girl who attends the CPE.
I do not understand that there is no alternative solution, that there is no accompaniment.
Raphaël Crevier, father of a child who attends the CPE
“I find it absolutely absurd,” adds Lise, a UQAM student mother of another little girl kept at the CPE, who prefers to keep her last name silent. She is also worried about a possible change of educator, when her daughter already has a strong emotional bond with those of Tortue stubborn, whom the parents “adore”, she says.
The spokesperson for the Ministry of Family, Bryan St-Louis, indicates that the CPEs “are responsible for their service continuity plans and for having a contingency fund, in case of emergency or unforeseen circumstances”.
Thus, “the Department does not have a funding program to temporarily relocate operations”.
It can, however, grant an allowance for this purpose “in exceptional circumstances”, he says, without specifying whether this is the case here. “In the exceptional case where no temporary premises or no place in an educational childcare service are found, the service will be temporarily interrupted,” adds Mr. St-Louis.