Childcare was front and centre for Premier John Horgan following Tuesday’s throne speech in Victoria.
It will be a top priority in next week’s budget as its the NDP’s intent to open up more childcare space in the province.
“It was again part of our plan and the first three years of the ramp-up period where we’re looking at the toddler and infant care, we’re creating more spaces, we’re training more people and those elements will be in the budget.”
“There is no backing away from anything as we are committed to making sure we bring in more spaces, we bring in more childhood educators and we allow families to experience their full economic potential and not to feat that they’re children aren’t being adequately cared for,” adds Horgan.
During last year’s election campaign, Horgan and the NDP promised a 10-dollar-a-day child care plan in BC.
Finding the right kind of housing for residents was another main point Horgan made on Tuesday as he touched on BC’s success with modular housing.
Earlier this year, the BC NDP has also introduced a 10-year Action Plan for Housing Affordability where they would build 114,000 rental, non-profit, co-op, and owner purchase housing units.
However, Horgan acknowledges more work needs to be done.
“We need to bring on rental housing, we need to have market built housing and we need to make sure the development community is incented to build the type of housing that British Columbians want to move into. One bedroom apartments, are not doing it for families of two, three and four.”
The throne speech was met with some opposition from Nechako Lakes MLA John Rustad who said Northern BC was left high and dry.
He believes more focus should have been put on the regions forestry and mining sectors.