COVID-19: Quebec father says daughter freezing as school leaves windows open

For Samuel Gagnon, father of a seven-year-old, the solution is simple. He thinks Quebec should install air exchangers in classrooms, something that's been done in other provinces.

Samuel Gagnon says his seven-year-old daughter has told him her classroom is sometimes so cold, she wants to cry.

Gagnon, who lives in Chateau-Richer, north of Quebec City, said his daughter’s school has been leaving the windows open in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

But after sending his daughter to school on a day where it was -40 C with the wind chill, he decided to act, calling his local member of the provincial legislature and posting a video on Facebook encouraging others to do the same.

“We have a serious problem, our children are freezing in our schools, and it’s unacceptable,” he said in an interview Friday.

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For Gagnon, the solution is simple. He thinks Quebec should install air exchangers in classrooms, something that’s been done in other provinces.

Heidi Yetman, the president of the Quebec Provincial Association of Teachers, a union that represents teachers at English-language schools in the province, said that while the Education Department has installed carbon dioxide detectors in around 50 per cent of classrooms, it hasn’t acted to improve air quality.

Quebec has said it plans to install air exchangers in some classrooms, but Yetman said she doesn’t know how many of the 400 devices the province says it has received have been installed.