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Supporters of municipal daycare in Windsor and Essex County gathered to plot strategy Tuesday night and vowed to make the proposed closure of nine centres an issue in the fall municipal election.
"I was incredibly shocked and incredibly upset," Andrea Calver of the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care told about 150 parents and supporters at a meeting at Club Alouette of when she learned of the proposed daycare closure.
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Calver and several others from OCBCC, which helped organize the meeting, made the trip from Toronto to take part. They vowed to return for other steps in the process.
The group is advocating that parents and interested citizens write handwritten letters to their city councillors and MPPs, sign an online petition and get active in a Facebook group online.
Those at the meeting were also urged to phone their councillors, make presentations to council on Feb. 1 and establish parent contacts for each daycare centre.
City staff are recommending the closure of the seven centres and two satellites, which would result in savings of $743,572 for the city and $317,971 for the county.
The report says that enrolment at city-run daycares has dropped 24 per cent since last summer's CUPE strike.
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Calver said the child care community in the rest of the province is watching what is happening in Windsor with great interest because the government is moving forward with its Best Start child care program, the result of an extensive study of early childhood education in the province.
"If Windsor eliminates its city-run child care system, it will not be able to run the Best Start child-care program," said Calver.
"People are just devastated to learn they may be wiped off the map in Windsor."
Calver acknowledged that Windsor has seen tough economic times of late, but that may change.
"What your city and government is doing is taking a snapshot in time, and times haven't been good," Calver said. "Nobody else is considering closing their child care centres."
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- reprinted from the Windsor Star