Latest news with #CPE
Time Business News
22-07-2025
- Health
- Time Business News
Transforming Hospital-Acquired Infection Detection
The hospital acquired disease testing refers to clinical procedures, which are used to detect infection that patients are contracted while staying in the hospital, such as MRSA, C. difficile, sepsis, and ventilator-associated pneumonia. The market testing for the market is increasing due to increasing incidence of infections associated with healthcare, increased antimicrobial resistance, and rapid, to prevent outbreaks and improve patient results. Additionally, progress in point-of-care tests, molecular diagnosis and transition control protocols is accelerating adoption in healthcare facilities worldwide. Key Growth Drivers and Opportunities Increasing Incidence of Infections Associated with Healthcare: Increasing incidence of healthcare infections-as M MRSA, C. difficile, and ventilator-associated pneumonia is a major driver, a major driver, which is the test market. These infections not only increase the cost of patient sickness and health care, but also demand more accurate clinical solutions to enable timely intervention and control. As hospitals strive to meet strict transition control rules and improve the patient's results, the need to be reliable continues to increase testing technologies, promoting market expansion. Challenges Hospital acquired disease (HAD) tests faces several borders, including high costs associated with advanced molecular diagnosis, limited availability of rapid point-care solutions in resource-settings, and capacity for false positive or negative due to sample contamination or sample contamination or low pathogen load. Additionally, in traditional laboratory-based methods, test results may obstruct clinical decisions on time. The lack of standardized testing protocols in institutions and complicate the increasing risk of antimicrobial resistance and complicate more accurate diagnosis and treatment, faced challenges for effective infection controls. Innovation and Expansion Hospital-Acquired Infection Monitoring is Being Transformed by Decentralized Diagnostics In November 2024, The Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Careggi hospital and Don Gnocchi, a rehabilitation facility in Florence, Italy, have teamed together to establish an infection prevention and control approach. The Don Gnocchi Foundation spearheaded their efforts by installing a Cepheid GeneXpert technology for screening carbapenemase-producing enterobacterales (CPE) on-site. Microbiologists from the Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria di Careggi then remotely and in real time confirm the results improved infection prevention and control, improved patient care, and total cost savings for the Don Gnocchi Foundation are all made possible by this methodology. Southern Ohio Medical Center Uses MEDITECH Expanse to Reduce C. difficile Rates by 30% In August 2022, Hospital-acquired C. difficile infections have decreased by 30% and test cancellations have decreased by 32% at Southern Ohio Medical Center (Portsmouth, OH). These outstanding accomplishments were the result of MEDITECH Professional Services (MPS) and SOMC's Quality Improvement Team working together to enhance patient outcomes, increase evidence-based treatment, and expedite the time-consuming, ineffective testing procedures. As part of its ongoing efforts to maintain high quality metrics on a publicly published measure, SOMC demonstrated a 30% relative decrease in hospital-acquired C. difficile. This helped the company avoid fines based on value-based payment models and boost customer confidence. By improving antibiotic prescribing procedures, this program has also aided their antimicrobial stewardship initiatives. Inventive Sparks, Expanding Markets Major development strategies for hospital acquired disease testing companies include rapid point-off-care and multiplex test platforms, strategic partnerships with hospitals and public health agencies, investing in AI-powered clinical equipment, regular approval for new assays and targeting emerging markets with scalable, low-cost solutions. About Author: Prophecy is a specialized market research, analytics, marketing and business strategy, and solutions company that offer strategic and tactical support to clients for making well-informed business decisions and to identify and achieve high value opportunities in the target business area. Also, we help our client to address business challenges and provide best possible solutions to overcome them and transform their business. TIME BUSINESS NEWS
Cision Canada
14-07-2025
- Business
- Cision Canada
Crown Point Announces Placement of US$25.0 Million of Series VII Notes
CWV: TSX.V CALGARY, AB, July 14, 2025 /CNW/ - (TSXV: CWV) : Crown Point Energy Inc. (" Crown Point", the " Company" or " we") is pleased to announce that on July 11, 2025, its wholly-owned Argentine subsidiary, Crown Point Energía S.A. (" CPE"), issued a total of US$25.0 million principal amount of Series VII unsecured fixed-rate notes (" Series VII Notes"), which are denominated in US$ and payable in Argentine Pesos (the " Offering"). The total principal amount of the Series VII Notes will be repaid in two equal installments on January 11, 2027 and July 11, 2027. The Series VII Notes accrue interest at a fixed rate of 13.0% per annum, payable every six months in arrears from the issue date. The net proceeds from the Offering will be used for general corporate purposes and to make investments in the development of assets in Argentina. The Offering was made pursuant to CPE's Negotiable Obligations Issuance Global Program for up to US$75 million (or its equivalent in other currencies) established by CPE's base prospectus dated June 18, 2025, as supplemented by prospectus supplement dated July 7, 2025, copies of which can be found in Spanish on the Financial Information Highway on the CNV website ( on the primary placements micro-website A3 Mercados S.A., and in the Bolsas y Mercados Argentinos S.A.'s (BYMA's) daily electronic bulletin. Following the closing of the Offering, CPE has the following notes outstanding: US$ 2,089,568 principal amount of Series III Notes; US$3,369,000 principal amount of Series IV Notes; US$7,183,058 principal amount of Series V Notes; US$22,000,000 principal amount of Series VI Notes; and US$25,000,000 principal amount of Series VII Notes. References to "US$" are to United States dollars. About Crown Point Crown Point is an international oil and gas exploration and development company headquartered in Buenos Aires, Argentina, incorporated in Alberta, Canada, trading on the TSX Venture Exchange and operating in Argentina. Crown Point's exploration and development activities are focused in four producing basins in Argentina, the Golfo San Jorge basin in the Province of Santa Cruz, the Austral basin in the province of Tierra del Fuego, and the Neuquén and Cuyano basins in the province of Mendoza. Crown Point has a strategy that focuses on establishing a portfolio of producing properties, plus production enhancement and exploration opportunities to provide a basis for future growth. Forward-looking Information: This document contains forward-looking information. This information relates to future events and the Company's future performance. All information and statements contained herein that are not clearly historical in nature constitute forward-looking information. Such information represents the Company's internal projections, estimates, expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, assumptions, intentions or statements about future events or performance. This information involves known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information. Crown Point believes that the expectations reflected in this forward-looking information are reasonable; however, undue reliance should not be placed on this forward-looking information, as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which they are based will occur. This press release contains forward-looking information concerning, among other things, the anticipated use of proceeds of the Offering and certain elements of the Company's business strategy and focus. The reader is cautioned that such information, although considered reasonable by the Company, may prove to be incorrect. Actual results achieved during the forecast period will vary from the information provided in this document as a result of numerous known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors. A number of risks and other factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking information contained in this document including, but not limited to, the following: the risk that CPE determines to use the proceeds of the Offering for purposes other than as disclosed herein; and the risks and other factors described under "Business Risks and Uncertainties" in the Company's most recently filed management's discussion and analysis and under "Risk Factors" in the Company's most recently filed Annual Information Form, which are available for viewing on SEDAR+ at With respect to forward-looking information contained in this document, the Company has made assumptions regarding various matters, including how the proceeds of the Offering will be used. Management of Crown Point has included the forward-looking information included in this document in order to provide investors with a more complete perspective on the Company's future operations. Readers are cautioned that this information may not be appropriate for other purposes. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing lists of factors are not exhaustive. The forward-looking information contained in this document are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking information contained herein is made as of the date of this document and the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly any such forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, other than as required by applicable Canadian securities laws. SOURCE Crown Point Energy Inc.
Daily Mirror
30-06-2025
- Daily Mirror
'Neighbour parks van across drive if I pop out for 5 mins it's there'
A homeowner has taken to social media to ask for help after a neighbour constantly leaves his vehicle across the drive - and gets annoyed when he asks him to move A homeowner has shared their aggravation over a neighbour who stubbornly parks his van at the end of their driveway and shows irritation when asked to move it. Venting their exasperation on Reddit, the distressed resident wrote: "The first day we moved in, he was parked in our drive, we kindly asked him to move and thought that would be that. However since then, he often parks in front of the drive and on the pavement, restricting our access. "I've spoken to him several times in addition to his girlfriend/wife, he seemed annoyed at being asked and continues to do so. I've taken to parking my car on the road, however having popped out for 5 minutes just now he's come back and blocked me again. There's ample room for him to move back. "I've reported to Birmingham council 100s of times but obviously they've done nothing. I own my home but believe them to be renting. Should I contact their estate agent? Landlord? Or any other thing I could do to get them to stop blocking my access?". Suggestions flooded in for dealing with inconsiderate neighbours - one of the cheeky tips was an early wake-up call. A user admitted, "Wake him up at 3am because you need to go and get bread." Which got this reply: "This is absolutely the way. We used to live in a house that had a garage block, and most of the neighbours were rentals. Every time new people moved in they would block me in. I used to leave home at 5:30 to go to the gym. It only ever needed one early morning wake up call for them to get the message." Another shared their success story: "This works, can confirm. Got home at about 04:00 to find neighbour blocking my drive, had a trailer so could not park elsewhere. Leaned on his doorbell and woke the whole house, never did again." On the subject of taking it further, a Reddit user queried, "You contacted the police? This might count as antisocial behavior if its a constant issue." In terms of the law the Ask the Police Website, which is created by the Police National Legal Database), a national organisation managed by West Yorkshire Police, said the person could be breaking the law - if the local council has adopted the Civil Parking Enforcement ruiles. It said: "If the vehicle is blocking access to your driveway you should first make enquiries with the neighbours to see if they know who the car belongs to, so they can move it. In most areas local councils have now taken on responsibility for enforcing parking provisions under what is known as Civil Parking Enforcement (CPE). Under CPE, it's an offence to park a vehicle that blocks a dropped kerb driveway. You can check if your local council has taken on CPE via the link below: "If your council has taken on CPE, you will usually need to report vehicles that are obstructing a dropped kerb directly to them – you can contact them via the link below: "If your local council hasn't taken on CPE, you will need to contact your local police force. The police/council policy for dealing with such matters may vary between forces/councils. Some police forces may only attend if your car has been blocked in and you cannot get out."
Wales Online
30-06-2025
- Automotive
- Wales Online
‘From the first day we moved in our neighbour parks across our drive and gets annoyed when we ask him to move'
'From the first day we moved in our neighbour parks across our drive and gets annoyed when we ask him to move' The homeowner asked for help in solving the problem saying he's tried parking there but if he pops out for '5 minutes' the van's back The van constantly parks at the end of the drive, blocking the homeowner in, he complained (Image: Reddit ) A homeowner has spoken of how a neighbour constantly parks his fan at the end of his drive - and gets annoyed when asked to move it. In a post asking for help, the person wondered if there was anything he could do about it - apart from parking his own car there. Taking to Reddit they said: 'The first day we moved in, he was parked in our drive, we kindly asked him to move and thought that would be that. However since then, he often parks in front of the drive and on the pavement restricting our access. 'I've spoken to him several times in addition to his girlfriend/wife, he seemed annoyed at being asked and continues to do so. I've taken to parking my car on the road, however having popped out for 5 minutes just now he's come back and blocked me again. There's ample room for him to move back. 'I've reported to Birmingham council 100's of times but obviously they've done nothing. I own my home but believe them to be renting. Should I contact their estate agent? Landlord? Or any other thing I could do to get them to stop blocking my access?' Users came back with suggestions - including waking them up early. One user said: 'Wake him up at 3am because you need to go & get bread.' This prompted the reply: 'This is absolutely the way. We used to live in a house that had a garage block, and most of the neighbours were rentals. Everytime new people moved in they would block me in. I used to leave home at 5:30 to go to the gym. It only ever needed one early morning wake up call for them to get the message.' Another added: 'This works, can confirm. Got home at about 04:00 to find neighbour blocking my drive, had a trailer so could not park elsewhere. Leaned on his doorbell and woke the whole house, never did again.' Article continues below One Reddit user asked: 'You contacted the police? This might count as antisocial behavior if its a constant issue.' In terms of the law the Ask the Police Website, which is created by the Police National Legal Database), a national organisation managed by West Yorkshire Police, said the person could be breaking the law - if the local council has adopted the Civil Parking Enforcement ruiles. It said: "If the vehicle is blocking access to your driveway you should first make enquiries with the neighbours to see if they know who the car belongs to, so they can move it. In most areas local councils have now taken on responsibility for enforcing parking provisions under what is known as Civil Parking Enforcement (CPE). Under CPE, it's an offence to park a vehicle that blocks a dropped kerb driveway. You can check if your local council has taken on CPE via the link below: - CPE List "If your council has taken on CPE, you will usually need to report vehicles that are obstructing a dropped kerb directly to them – you can contact them via the link below: - Find your local council Article continues below "If your local council hasn't taken on CPE, you will need to contact your local police force. The police/council policy for dealing with such matters may vary between forces/councils. Some police forces may only attend if your car has been blocked in and you cannot get out."
The Guardian
24-06-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Quebec provides universal childcare for less than $7 a day. Here's what the US can learn
When asked how much she pays for childcare, Leah Freeman chuckles and says she isn't sure. 'It's like C$93 (about $67) every two weeks or something. I barely see it leaving my bank account,' she said. To most parents in the US, where the average cost of childcare is $1,000 per month and can reach more than $2,000 a month in some states, the idea of paying so little sounds impossible. But it's happening – north of the US border in Quebec, Canada, where Freeman's three-year-old daughter, Grace, attends a subsidized early childhood education center (centres de la petite enfance, known by its acronym CPE), for C$9.35, or less than $7 a day. As soon as she found out that she was pregnant, Freeman, a social worker, placed her daughter on a handful of waiting lists through a government website. Now she can drop her daughter off for up to 10 hours a day, between 6am and 6pm, five days a week, all year round. In addition to childcare, Grace sees a speech therapist at the CPE. A daily menu of the home-cooked meals and snacks is posted at the building's entrance every morning; meals are on a monthly rotation with seasonal changes and locally sourced produce when available. All this is possible because in 1997, Quebec lawmakers enacted a universal childcare program as part of an effort to give equal opportunities to all children – especially kids from low-income families – to get young mothers back to work and to increase the government's tax revenue and eliminate the province's budget deficit. The massively popular program has been a win for everyone involved: it offers high-quality early education to toddlers; good, unionized jobs to childcare workers; has helped close the gender pay gap; affords young families crucial support in the earliest years of their children's lives and has been a financial boon to the government. It's been so popular that now the model is being built up across the rest of Canada. Perhaps ironically, Quebec's approach was partly inspired by the groundbreaking research into early childhood coming out of the US – that providing high-quality education early on was not just socially good but a smart economic investment. 'The best way to reduce social inequalities is to invest in small children very early in their lives,' said Nathalie Bigras, a retired professor at Université du Québec à Montréal who spent her career researching Quebec's childcare. 'And this is something that you [Americans] told us.' Now, as the US faces its own growing childcare crisis – an unaffordable patchwork of care that varies wildly in quality and accessibility – what can it learn from Quebec? Plenty, experts say. On the ground floor of a redbrick school that also houses an adult education center, Les Trottinettes ('The Scooters') is a CPE that serves 26 kids from nine months to five years old. It's part of a network of five CPEs in Verdun, a traditionally working-class, though rapidly gentrifying, neighborhood of Montreal. Asylum seekers who are single parents can enroll their children here while they take French language classes and continuing education courses upstairs. Across two big rooms with a maze of different play stations, children paint bright colors at small easels. There's a water table, a sand box, wooden construction blocks, colorful bricks, a quiet reading nook and lots of well-loved, sturdy wooden furniture. With open-ended questions, Les Trottinettes educators encourage kids to plan their play intentions, develop them through action and then reflect on how their project went. 'You can learn so much about a society by studying its approach to early childhood,' said Stéphane Trudel, a trained sociologist and the general manager of Les Trottinettes. 'We're at the frontline of social inequalities, of gender inequalities, of cultural clashes.' Yet he finds that very few anthropologists or journalists are interested in it. 'It's a blind spot,' he said. Trudel credits research from the US as having influenced Quebec's approach to early childhood education. American research spanning child welfare, psychological development, nutrition, education and economics was extensively cited in the 1991 report that led to Quebec's new family policy. And even in terms of pedagogy, Les Trotinette's curriculum, for instance, is based on HighScope, an approach started in Michigan designed to close the opportunity gap for low-income families. HighScope's longitudinal study, conducted by the Nobel prize-winning economist James Heckman, found lasting intergenerational benefits to high-quality early childhood education, calculating an estimated C$12.90 return for every C$1 invested – from success in school, higher earning over decades, reduced crime and use of social assistance programs. The roots of Quebec's childcare model go back decades, to the French-speaking province's 'Quiet Revolution' in the 1960s, which booted the Catholic church out of state institutions and made them more secular and egalitarian. Marriage went out of fashion and rates plummeted, leading to dire poverty among children of single mothers. Social movements, feminist activists, labor unions and single-parent family associations demanded new policies, such as parental leave and universal childcare, to address the new family structures. Later, in 1997, the secessionist Parti Québécois government enacted the new family policy as part of an effort to restructure the social safety net and eliminate the budget deficit. The crown jewel of this new policy was the creation of the centres de la petite enfance (CPE), an autonomous network of subsidized childcare centers, offering high-quality, low-cost care (C$5 at the time), with unionized staff and parent-led governance. 'It's the parents who run the show,' said Pauline Marois, the architect of Quebec's family policy who was also Quebec's first female premier, and is now chancellor of Université du Québec à Montréal. She said she helped craft the CPE model in collaboration with existing community daycare networks, run by parents and neighborhood organizations, like Les Trottinettes. Marois described the key ingredients for this public system's success as investment into educational programs, universal access through low fees and high parental involvement – because no institution could protect children's interests better than their parents. Parent-run boards set the curriculum, manage the day-to-day operations, the hiring and training of staff, while the state sets laws on staff training, child ratios, quality control and by covering the majority of the cost. Marois called the creation of CPEs a 'complete revolution' and one of the biggest social changes the province had experienced in the past three decades. It might seem like a public childcare network offering high-quality education, homemade meals and help for children with special needs for about C$10 a day would be expensive for taxpayers, but it actually generates a profit, said Pierre Fortin, an emeritus economist at Université de Quebec at Montreal. 'The system pays for itself – it brings women into the workplace and they pay taxes,' said Fortin, a leading expert on the economics of subsidized childcare. 'You get more money flowing into government coffers.' This extra tax revenue actually exceeds what the government initially paid to establish the universal childcare system, he said. Fortin, who has written papers showing how this policy creates 'fiscal surpluses', attributes women's growing labor force participation directly to the introduction of low-fee childcare. Today, Quebec has among the highest female labor force participation rates in the world right next to Sweden, while the US lags more than 10% behind. In addition, the gender pay gap – the difference between the earnings of men and women – is smaller in Quebec, where women typically earn 91 cents on the male dollar, than the US, where women earn just 85 cents. Measuring the causal impact of Quebec's subsidized childcare on factors such as poverty and social assistance is an imprecise science, but Fortin points out that the number of single-parent families on social assistance in Quebec plummeted by more than 50% in the decade following the reform. Today, Fortin calculated exclusively for the Guardian, that Quebec has 75% fewer single-parent families on social assistance than it did in 1996. It's also had a tremendous impact on childhood wellbeing. In 1996, child poverty rates across Canada were at an all-time high and children in Quebec were among the worst off. Today, it's the opposite. According to the most recent figures, Quebec's child poverty rate was 44% lower than all other Canadian provinces. Fortin estimates that poverty in Quebec decreased by more than 60% in two decades, but points out that universal childcare wasn't implemented in isolation, but alongside other important social policies, such as enhanced parental leave (now up to 55 weeks of paid leave), high rates of education and employment and pay equity legislation. Scaling up the non-profit daycare network to meet the immediate explosion in demand is where things got tricky. 'We had a big problem – we were victims of our own success,' said Marois. Waitlists became so long that kids could age into kindergarten before getting a spot. Marois had imposed a moratorium on licenses for for-profit daycares in order to prioritize the CPE network's expansion. In 2000, the more conservative Liberal party of Quebec came into power in the province, and ended the moratorium, instead favoring tax credits to parents over public investment. This led to a surge of poorly regulated private centers that often failed quality checks. A former minister called this shift the province's biggest policy mistake in 25 years. While the long-term positive effects of CPEs have been especially impactful for children from poor families, access remains unequal – low-income families are underrepresented in CPEs and overrepresented in the low-quality for-profit centers. In urban centers like Montreal, disadvantaged neighborhoods have fewer CPE spots available than affluent ones. Still, the successes of CPEs became a model for the rest of Canada. In 2021, as the pandemic decimated childcare centers across the country, Canada committed more than C$30bn to build a universal childcare system in partnership with provinces, territories and Indigenous governing bodies, aiming for C$10-a-day care and 250,000 new spaces by 2026. By mid-2024, six of Canada's 13 jurisdictions hit the C$10-a-day goal, and others cut fees by half, according to the Childcare Resource and Research Unit. In March, days before stepping down as prime minister, Justin Trudeau committed another C$37bn in funding to federal childcare until 2031 to 'lock in' his flagship policy as 'a foundational building block of what it means to be Canadian'. Asked if she thinks the US could build up a universal childcare system like Quebec, Martha Friendly, executive director of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit and lifelong advocate for universal high-quality childcare on both sides of the border, is blunt. 'No,' she said. 'There isn't even healthcare.' But others are less pessimistic. Elliot Haspel, an early childhood and education policy expert and author of Crawling Behind: America's Child Care Crisis and How to Fix It, disagrees: 'Canada has shown that you can go from a market-based system to a publicly supported system, if you're willing to put in substantial amounts of money.' Haspel said that Canadian lawmakers had a 'fundamental flip' in attitude: 'They turned childcare from being a welfare service for low-income families to a core part of the social infrastructure,' like schools, roads and fire departments. 'That, I think, is really exciting.' That's the kind of mental flip that would need to happen in the US, which has some of the highest childcare costs in the world, yet ranks 40th out of 41 high-income countries on policies like paid parental leave and affordable, accessible and high-quality childcare. Half of Americans live in 'childcare deserts', and workers – mostly women of color – are underpaid. Some US politicians have tried to take steps towards a better childcare system, but with little success. In 2021, Elizabeth Warren, a senator, proposed a universal childcare bill modeled on the Head Start program. It died in committee. Joe Biden's Build Back Better Act included hundreds of billions in subsidies for childcare and funding for universal pre-K, but this was cut from the final version of the bill. Though a federal overhaul of US childcare might not be on the immediate horizon, the number of states offering free pre-K to a majority of their residents has steadily increased over the past two decades, with 37% of US four-year-olds now attending one of these programs. Other states are implementing their own subsidized childcare programs. In 2022, New Mexico became the first state in the nation to offer free childcare to a majority of families, by amending its state constitution to use 1.25% of fossil fuel revenues to fund early learning and childcare. And in recent years, Massachusetts, Vermont, Washington and other states have implemented new taxes to help fund early learning, childcare and pre-K. Just as Quebec's proof-of-concept influenced the creation of Canada's C$10-a-day system, Haspel sees these states as 'interesting testing grounds' for funding early learning and childcare. 'The tricky part is the upfront cost is a lot. You have to identify a funding source' that will last years, Haspel said. 'You can't do this by half measures … there's a lot of goodwill, but not a lot of campaign contributions coming.' If Quebec can teach the US anything, it's that a mass mobilization of people demanding paid family leave, universal childcare and high-quality early education can work. Lawmakers need a crash course in the broken market math of childcare and how to turn it around: public investment pays off when parents can work, put food on the table for their kids and pay taxes and when today's toddlers become tomorrow's taxpayers. 'I'm convinced that the more women we have in politics, the more we'll move towards public policies that promote gender equality and the fight against poverty,' said Marois. After all, it was feminist lawmakers like herself, and Chrystia Freeland, the former Canadian finance minister, who successfully reframed childcare as essential economic infrastructure and made such policies a reality in Quebec and now Canada. Quebec also shows that to get the quality that will reap long-term rewards for children, investment must be sustained over decades and into a public system and its educators rather than a for-profit market. Even in Quebec, this is still a work in progress. In March, the union representing the largest number of early childhood education centers – nearly 13,000 workers – voted to go on strike. It's the only province that has unionized educators, but like elsewhere, there's a shortage, and high turnover, due to low pay and grueling working conditions. On a freezing Tuesday in early April, snow blanketed the picket line of Les Trottinettes educators in Verdun as cars zipped by honking. The following Saturday morning, hundreds of parents with strollers and children took to the streets of Montreal, in solidarity with their beloved educators. Families marched through the streets with bobbing placards that read: 'The diaper is full,' 'Kisses don't pay the rent,' and 'We're forming tomorrow's adults, so consider us today.' A spokesperson from Quebec's ministry of families said the province had invested C$5.9bn into the early learning and care network since October 2021. Trudel, who runs Les Trottinettes, worries that his cherished network of CPEs is on the brink due to the high staff turnover and low pay. 'We found out the other day that our food produce delivery guy makes more than our educators,' he said. But the cultural shift in Quebec means that parents and the public consider universal childcare to be a core part of the social contract and their Quebecois identity. In early June, after 13 days on strike this year, the unionized educators agreed in principle to a renewed collective bargaining agreement with the Quebec government. Looking at the childcare crisis south of the border, Trudel is struck that all the US research that once inspired Quebec hasn't led to similar change there. 'When we have ample data documenting best practices to help children to thrive and have better life outcomes,' he said, 'when there's such clear evidence and we don't act, it's an ideological decision.'
