Sharon, as was mentioned, is great if you have to be able to receive calls. We have used her when a relative was ill and needed to be contacted in an emergency.

If just dialing home to check on things then just put Skype on your phone and use wifi...assuming the wifi is reasonable. Phone is kept on airplane mode from the first step onto the plane until we get back home. WiFi turned on when at the resort (or wherever has wifi). Costs around 3 cents (US) a minute for most calls back home or international calls in country. Outgoing SMS texts work fine also.

When traveling by car in Europe we do sign up for the daily (Verizon) plan because there would be issues while driving to the rental (no wifi). But when we get to the destination it goes back into airplane/wifi mode and Skype.

...and a lot of the increased cost of the Bell monthly plan might be due to the exchange rate changes. The US (Verizon) plan is $40 which IS around $54 CAD so pretty close