CBC News: Windsor considers closing city daycares

"Currently the city runs seven daycare centres and two after-school programs, with space for 425 children."

"Staff at the centres have been told it will recommend closing seven of the nine facilities, said Jean Fox, President of Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 543 representing the 115 unionized workers who would lose their jobs."

"The daycares are running at less than half their capacity, a situation that Cercone attributes in part to Windsor's struggling economy where the unemployment rate of 13.3 per cent is the highest in the country."

"Fox said the closures would be phased in, with Amherstburg losing its daycare in April, the Lauzon Centre closing in July and the remaining five centres shutting their doors by Sept.1. That is the same day the Ontario government will begin full-day kindergarten at 600 schools across the province, including 18 in Windsor-Essex."

"There's still going to be a need to have day cares, not just for four- and five-year-olds, but for toddlers, the two- and three-year-olds, and our daycares provide infant care. So closing them is going to leave families in Windsor without child care for infants and for the toddlers."

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