Angel >>Unions for home daycare workers Following a Quebec Labour Tribunal ruling on Monday, the province’s 10,000 home daycare workers will be getting treatment on par with the rest of the employees at a government-funded daycare scheme. That means they get a union, benefits, sick days, vacation pay and EI. A 1999 study showed that home daycare workers were paid a measly $4.63 an hour, compared to $10.10 for other workers. As it stands now, home workers were paid $22 per day per child, but had to cover all expenses, including food, cribs and electricity.

Insect >>More corporate malfeasance Nortel’s chief financial officer, Terry Hungle, was fired this week for moving money from a Nortel-based stock fund to another less than a month before Nortel posted its massive first-quarter losses, then moving money back a month before it was announced fourth-quarter losses would be smaller than expected. Meanwhile, Corel’s former boss, Michael Cowpland, was fined $1-million in exchange for having criminal charges of insider trading against him dropped. In Quebec, PQ bigwig Raymond Bréard resigned Monday for receiving $200,000 from a government fund. Not as bad as Enron, sure, but if ever arguments were needed for stricter control over pursestrings, these are it.