Daycare unhappy with delays in playground repairs
Children and staff have ‘put up with a playground of sand and mud,’ MNA Massé says
Parents and educators at a Plateau Mont-Royal daycare have become so frustrated with their landlord’s delays in rebuilding the facility’s playground that they called a news conference Friday to appeal to the provincial government for help.
The Centre de la petite enfance (CPE) Lafontaine is one of two daycares that operate out of a 129-yearold building on Roy St. at the corner of Berri St. Back in 2006, the owner of the building, a government agency called the Société Québécoise des infrastructures (SQI), tore up the playground because the building needed some major repairs to its foundation.
The CPE has been making do with what was supposed to be a temporary, much smaller playground for eight years now; it amounts to not much more than a few picnic tables, a sandbox and a wooden walkway over a surface of sand and wood chips.
All but one of the trees were removed, and the permanent multi-activity play structures were removed and replaced by much simpler, plastic portable ones.
CPE director Josée Lalonde said plans to rebuild the playground were elaborated and approved by the owner back in 2006, and a budget approved in 2008, but the project keeps getting postponed for administrative reasons.
Lalonde and the CPE’s board of directors finally decided to appeal to the government through the media when the project was delayed yet again recently and the SQI demanded the CPE pay for more than half of the cost of the reconstruction itself.
They say the structural work also damaged windows and a stairway that would be used as an escape route during an emergency.
“Poorly insulated and damaged windows affect our children’s health, an inadequate playground is not optimal for a child’s development and a faulty fire escape is nothing short of a safety hazard for children and staff at the CPE,” says the statement distributed by the CPE Friday.
Lalonde said the delays amount to a “lack of respect” by the SQI bureaucracy toward the staff and children at the daycare.
Québec solidaire’s Manon Massé, member of the national assembly for Sainte-Marie — Saint-Jacques, attended the news conference and promised to bring the issue to the attention of the minister responsible for the SQI, Martin Coiteux.
“For eight years, the children and educators have put up with a playground of sand and mud,” Massé said.
“Children have the right to an adequate and safe environment. It is unacceptable that the SQI has taken the playground hostage for so long and then comes at the last minute and demands that the CPE tenant assume the $180,000 costs of rebuilding, when the CPE has lost the use of the playground for many years. With all the cuts announced by the government of Mr. Couillard, parents and staff have reason to worry.”
But SQI spokesman Martin Roy insisted the children and workers at the daycare are in absolutely no danger. He said the work to the foundation had to be done in two phases, one in 2006 and a second phase of work in 2010.
“We are in the process of getting a building permit from the city,” Roy said. “We should be putting out a call for tenders on the work in August and it should be completed by mid-November.”
As for the cost of the new playground, he said the parties had agreed that the SQI would spend $93,000 on three new permanent play structures, a ramp for strollers, a terrace and a new play surface.
But he said the CPE was now asking for more features, such as a fountain, water-play equipment and more expensive play surfaces that would amount to another $100,000 in expenditures. He said negotiations continue on that issue.
A spokeswoman for Coiteux said the minister is concerned about the children’s safety first. Marie-Éve Labranche said the minister has ordered an engineer and an architect to do immediate inspections of the building and grounds to ensure the staff, parents and children who use them are safe.
“They will do those inspections today and tomorrow and if there are any problems there will be immediate action taken,” she said, adding the minister is also encouraging the two parties to continue talking and resolve the issue to get the new playground built as soon as possible.