No Daycares? No Integration!

Refugee claimants and social groups speak out against the lack of access to subsidized daycare services.

With the support of more than 20 organizations, including the Table des groupes de femmes de Montréal, a group of refugee claimants published an open letter to party leaders asking for an end to their exclusion from subsidized daycare services and CPEs. The Comité des demandeurs et demandeuses d’asile pour l’accès aux garderies condemns the fact that children of refugee claimants are not able to access these crucial spaces for education and socialization. It also denounces the fact that refugee claimants who are parents are prevented from taking French classes or applying for jobs for which they are qualified.

During an electoral campaign in which integration became a hot-button issue, the Comité finds it senseless that so many families are not guaranteed access to subsidized daycare services and CPEs, regardless of their status. The Comité highlights that this lack of access to childcare especially affects mothers who are refugee claimants.

In addition to the open letter to political parties, the Comité has started ​a petition to grant access to affordable daycare services to refugee claimant families. Individuals and organizations are invited to sign. The Comité promises to put pressure on the next government to insist that it put a stop to this discriminatory policy.

Source: Press Release from the Comité, which can be contacted at comite.acces.garderies@gmail.com.

Related pages (in French):
Places en CPE:  des demandeurs d'asile se disent victimes de discrimination, Radio-Canada, 25.09.2018
Des demandeurs d'asile revendiquent l'accès aux services de garde subventionnés, Agnès Gruda, 25.09.2018