Some much needed relief is toddling towards Tofino’s daycare crunch as the provincial government has announced a brand new childcare facility is coming to town.
The facility will have spaces for 76 kids and will be built on School District 70 lands in the community.
“It’s just fantastic news. The daycare situation in Tofino has been acute for some time and just in the last year-and-a-half it’s become certainly what some parents know to be a crisis,” Tofino mayor Dan Law told the Westerly News. “Last year, during the summertime, when of course many parents are working more than full time in Tofino, there was no full-time daycare operating in Tofino…Once this facility and childcare operations are up and running, it’s just going to be fantastic for our town. This is going to be tremendously important for Tofino.”
While there is no set timeline for when the facility will be completed, Law said he doesn’t expect the province “will waste anytime.”
“It just can’t come quick enough. It’s going to be so great. The only thing is that we just have to wait until the facility is built and the program gets up and running. The only downside is that it isn’t magically materializing right now, but otherwise it’s just fantastic. It’s great news,” he said. “I’m just so pleased with the province doing this. It’s certainly what our region needs and to see it happen in real time is such a relief. I’m very grateful to the province.”
The province’s announcement notes it has invested roughly $2.7 billion into its ChildCareBc plan since 2018.
“We know that access to affordable child care makes an enormous difference in people’s lives, and we’re seeing that first-hand in our communities as our government has created more spaces and made them more affordable,” said Mid Island-Pacific Rim MLA Josie Osborne. “We know there’s still more work to do to build a future where child care is a core service that’s available and affordable for any family that wants it. That’s why we will keep working to build more new spaces, and I’m so grateful to our partners who are coming forward to help make this a reality.”
andrew.bailey@westerlynews.ca
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