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  • A Petition for a New Law

    Canadians already have the legal right to breastfeed in public. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms gives all women in Canada this right. However, not many people are aware of this.

    An official government petition has been set up to push for a clarification to the law to explicitly protect the rights of women to breastfeed in Quebec. This would bring Québec law more in line with the laws of BC, Ontario and Nova-Scotia. These provinces clearly describe a woman’s right to breastfeed in public in their provincial human rights tribunal guidelines.

    The petition is being sponsored by the MNA for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Carole Poirier, who is also the official opposition spokesperson for family matters. If you’re a resident of the province, you can sign it. All the signatures need to be in by April 25.

    Sign the Québec government petition

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  • Media Coverage

    On January 5th I was asked to stop breastfeeding in a Montreal clothing store. Here’s a list of media coverage, so far. An especially big thank you to all the bloggers who took the time to write about the incident, and share their personal stories and thoughts on breastfeeding in general, and breastfeeding in public aka Nursing in Public (NIP), in particular. If you see anything I’ve missed, please leave a link in the comments. (more…)

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  • Allaite-In (That’s a nurse-in folks!)

    Seems I’ve just been invited to a nurse-in.

    Wednesday, January 19 · 1:00pm – 1:30pm
    Orchestra – Montréal Complexe Les Ailes
    677, rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest
    Montreal, QC H3B 1B9
    View a map

    There is a facebook event here, if you care to join in.

    Text from the facebook event page: “Le magasin Orchestra, est un magasin pour enfants (sic!) situé au niveau métro du Complexe les Ailes de la mode à Montréal.” Nice!

    Merci à Genviève pour l’invitation. C’est très touchant.

    And a gentle reminder that all are welcome, whether you are a breastfeeding mom, or a mom who bottlefeeds or otherwise doesn’t breastfeed, or even (gasp!) a man. You just need to be in solidarity with breastfeeding moms and breastfed babes and behind the right to feed your kids the way you like. After all, it would be a poor fight against exclusion that then excluded others.

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  • Letter Writing Campaign

    Does this make you angry? Grab a pen/keyboard and join the letter writing campaign.

    I’ve collected a listed of addresses of interested parties that you can contact.

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  • A tired hungry baby

    Yesterday I was asked to stop breastfeeding my baby.  And I’m pissed.

    I was shopping at Orchestra, a kids’ clothing store at the Complexe Les Ailes shopping centre in downtown Montreal. They have a small semi-secluded seating area for kids with movies playing. My older kids were sitting in their stroller watching the movie when my youngest got hungry. So I fed her. She’s 5 months old and she eats breastmilk. From my actual breast. Shocking, I know!

    I wasn’t even the only mother breastfeeding. I was being discrete, as if it matters, which it doesn’t (but that’s for another blog post). And I hadn’t finished shopping.

    And that’s when the store clerk showed up and asked us both to stop.
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