More than 1,300 daycare workers walk off the job in Montreal

More than 1,300 workers at dozens of public daycares in Montreal and Laval have launched an unlimited strike this morning.The strike has affected 57 early childhood education centres (CPEs), leaving  parents of about 3,000 children looking for alternative child care. The workers have been without a collective agreement since March 2015, and they have held multiple strikes over the past several months. Employees demonstrated outside a daycare on Jean-Talon Street in the Villeray neighbourhood waving signs and picketing.

Chantal Bellavance, a spokesperson for the Association Patronale nationale des CPE, which represents the daycare employers, said they want the flexibility to send some casual workers home in exceptional circumstances. “Thousands of parents won’t have any service,” she said. “The workers won’t have any salary, and the daycares won’t have any subsidies.”

 3 sisters among 5 dead in crash

Three sisters  are among the five people killed when two vehicles collided near a small town south of Edmonton. The three sisters were from the nearby Maskwacis First Nation, also known as Hobbema, and lived in Wetaskiwin. These sisters are Dominique Soosay 19; Cheyanne Soosay 22, she was a mother of three young children under the age of 5 and Latesha Soosay  25, she was a mother of two: a 7-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son

Four people from one of the vehicles were pronounced dead at the scene. Another person from the vehicle was declared dead after being transported to hospital. The occupant of the second vehicle suffered only minor injuries and is recovering in hospital.

Wetaskiwin RCMP said the collision happened on a busy, single-lane highway outside Millet, Alta., about 50 kilometres south of Edmonton. As per reports, a SUV with some damage to its front end and a second vehicle with extensive damage to its back half were reported at the site of the crash.