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OUR VIEW: Rowdy gallery gets its way

Was all the unruly behaviour really necessary?

In the end, city council decided to endorse a $10 a day daycare in principle without fully endorsing the plan proposed by the Community Plan for a Public System of Integrated Early Care and Learning.

Some councillors were rightly asking how the province would pay for such a system but others decided that could be worked out later and that it wasn’t council’s responsibility to figure it out. The question arises as to whether this was council’s issue at all. Do our municipal governments not have enough issues dumped on their laps by senior levels of government without councillors taking on provincial responsibilities voluntarily?

Anyway, speaking of childish behaviour, why do people involved in issues about the care of children insist on bringing their kids out to protest for them? You see it in teacher disputes and daycare supporters felt the need to trot out their kids past their bedtimes to a boring city council meeting. At least the kids were quiet it was the adults who were rowdy. Mayor Andy Adams quipped, when asking the gallery to be quiet, that this was not a gymnasium.

The gallery got its support from council so was all the unruly behaviour really necessary? Not intending to sound like an old curmudgeon here, but what did they think they were teaching their kids with that behaviour?