WATCH ABOVE: A privately owned pre-school for autistic children in Montreal is being threatened with closure. According to the Quebec government, the Little Red Playhouse does not have a proper operating permit. Rachel Lau reports.
MONTREAL-WEST – Kristine Barbara has two autistic children, but after feeling neglected at her 7-dollar-a-day daycare, she decided enough is enough.
“I had very little say on the type of person that would assist my son and really, in the end I just couldn’t anymore,” she said.
She desperately started looking elsewhere, and found the Little Red Playhouse.
“This place has really just been fantastic for them,” said Barbara.
“I can’t sing the praises of this place enough.”
For the lat few months, the Little Red Playhouse has found itself in a bureaucratic maze with no directions on how to get out.
“Am I going to spend $1500 to be able to fill out a form or am I going to continue to try and fight?” said Sharon McCarry, the pre-school’s owner.
The private pre-school, which integrates all children – including those with special needs – doesn’t have a proper permit.
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The government says McCarry can’t stay open without it.
“We were read the five exceptions and we were told, ‘You see, you don’t fit in these exceptions. You don’t fit in these exceptions’ and we were like, ‘OK we understand that. Can we create an exception because of the uniqueness of what it is that I do?'”
Global News spoke with the Family Ministry Tuesday.
We decided to sit down with McCarry to contact the person we had already spoken to, but the Ministry’s representative refused to speak to McCarry and simply told her to call the 1800 number.
“Nobody, nobody should ever consider closing this place down,” said Alexandra Fenster, whose son attends the pre-school.
“It would be just detrimental to so many parents and the children that are here.”
McCarry is fighting tooth and nail to get the Ministry to listen to her, but she insists she won’t fill out a useless form.
“I know you want me to do this and it’s really – if you look at the metaphor like ‘I want you to wear size five shoes because I’m telling you.’ Well, that’s great but it really hurts and I don’t want to wear size five shoes,” she said.
“That’s really the reality here.”
For Barbara, the Little Red Playhouse is a blessing and losing it would mean the end of her sons’ education.
“It would be devastating, you know?” she said.
“It would really tear our little world up.”
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