The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor The provincial government is satisfied with remedial actions taken at a Cranberry Portage daycare after a toddler fled unnoticed last month. A spokesperson for the Manitoba Child Care Program said staff at the Cranberry Portage Children's Developmental Centre were cooperative during an investigation into the incident. The spokesperson said the centre is working to make changes to ensure new procedures and safeguards are in place, such as installing a gate. Daycare staff are also working with the adjacent elementary school to discuss additional issues related to the play space for the daycare, the spokesperson said. Conduct visits The province's regional child care coordinator will continue to conduct additional visits to the daycare to ensure ongoing compliance and safety, the spokesperson added. The province has the authority to issue a licensing order to compel a daycare to take actions that address a violation. But that won't be necessary in this case, the spokesperson said, since the two sides have worked together "in a cooperative fashion to achieve improvements." None of this is enough to convince Arthur Penner to send his children back to the daycare. See 'Go...' on pg. 6 Continued from pg. 1 On June 8, Penner's two-year-old son Austin left the facility alone before crossing a busy highway. Penner says his son was gone for about half an hour before a Good Samaritan found him about three blocks away. Penner was so outraged that he took his story to The Reminder, a move he said earned him kudos from his fellow residents. "Everybody said 'good job' for doing what I did, for taking it as far as I did," he said. Penner also contacted a lawyer but was told that since Austin was not injured, all Penner could do would be to sue for a contractual breach worth $120 a month. The incident prompted Penner to pull Austin and his two other young children out of the daycare. That has worked so far since his wife has now completed her schooling and can stay home during the day. Penner, a bush firefighter who plans to get his carpentry certificate, said he and his wife will utilize a smaller, home-based daycare in Cranberry Portage when the time comes. The young father said June 8 marked the second time Austin disappeared from the daycare. The first incident occurred about three weeks earlier, he said, when the toddler walked to the nearby Frontier Collegiate, where his mother was taking classes. The daycare is a locally operated, not-for-profit service that is licensed and partially funded by the province.
