A two-year-old girl got a three-day suspension from her Ottawa daycare Monday. Her offence: Possession of a contraband cheese sandwich. Randy Murray was packing his daughter Faith and son Michael off to the Centre D’Enfant Aux 4 Vents in Barrhaven Monday morning, but they’d missed breakfast, so he made the sandwiches to eat in the car en route. Faith popped hers in her pocket instead, and when a staff member found it, her suspension was automatic.
The daycare has a strict ban on outside food to protect children with severe allergies.
“This wasn’t a packed lunch or intentionally brought in,” Murray said. “This was purely accidental by a two-year-old.”
Nancy Brisebois, assistant director at Centre D’Enfant aux 4 Vents, said she couldn’t discuss the specific incident, but that the French-language centre clearly communicates their policy, which includes automatic expulsion for possession of peanut butter, to parents.
“Upon enrolment, parents must sign a contract which they review and we review with them, and this contract specifically mentions that we have zero tolerance,” she said.
Murray, who doesn’t speak French, thought a warning would have been more reasonable under the circumstances. “The automatic suspension kinda got right under my skin,” he said.
Faith, Murray said, won’t be going back to the centre when her sentence is up: “We’ve decided that I’m going to take off [work] and be Daddy Daycare for the time being until we can line somebody else up. I feel too strongly about how this all kind of played out.”