We Are Oshawa is launching a grassroots campaign on child care with a rally at Conservative MP Colin Carrie’s constituency office on Saturday, September 6th at 11AM.  Inspired by the national Rethink Child Care coalition, We Are Oshawa is planning to assemble over 300 mothers, fathers, supporters and their children at the rally, each representing about ten families on the wait list for subsidized child care in Durham Region.  We Are Oshawa is also putting out the call to all federal and provincial parties and candidates in the upcoming municipal elections as an invitation to meet with representatives from the organization to discuss child care

“We registered for subsidized child care when my partner was two months pregnant.  Last month we celebrated our daughter’s second birthday and we still have not had a face to face meeting with somebody at the region,” says We Are Oshawa spokesperson, Jesse Cullen.

“Our organization supports restoring the national child care program the Harper Conservatives ripped up after taking office in 2006,” says Tiffany Balducci, another spokesperson for We Are Oshawa.  “The facts are clear; investments in public child care is good for the economy and it pays for itself.  It’s also the right thing to do,” added Tiffany.

Quick facts:

• Almost 70 percent of mothers with children under five are working, yet Canada lacks a national child care system. For many families, child care is the second highest expense after housing. In Ontario, families pay between $40 and $60 a day for child care, compared to $7 a day in Quebec.
• There are currently over 3,800 families on the waitlist for subsidized care in Durham Region.
• Quebec’s child care program increased the number of women in the workforce by 3.8 percent and boosted the province’s GDP by 1.7 percent.
• Indigenous children, children with disabilities, infants, toddlers and rural children are the most affected by the lack of affordable child care spaces.
• For more information:

Rethink Child Care: rethinkchildcare.ca 
We Are Oshawa: weareoshawa.ca/childcare
Jesse Cullen: 905.441.9112
Tiffany Balducci: 905.391.1571