This new Vancouver daycare is sitting empty, despite a massive waitlist. Advocates say this may become more common
Dan Fumano: As child care funding becomes a B.C. election issue once again, a new, publicly funded, 69-space daycare in downtown Vancouver is sitting dark and empty
By Dan Fumano
Last updated 1 day ago
The newly built 11-storey building overlooking the downtown Vancouver waterfront is “absolutely stunning,” says Bernice Scholten.
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The city-owned complex in Coal Harbour incorporates Vancouver’s newest public elementary school, which welcomed its first students this September, 60 non-market rental homes, most of which are designed for families with children, and a 69-space daycare.
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This new Vancouver daycare is sitting empty, despite a massive waitlist. Advocates say this may become more common Back to video
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“It’s state-of-the-art,” said Scholten, CEO of the Vancouver Society of Children’s Centres, the non-profit group commonly known as VSOCC, the city’s chosen operator for the new Coal Harbour daycare.
There’s one problem: despite a huge need, the newly completed daycare sits empty.
“It pains me … We put so much time, effort and energy working with the City of Vancouver to create those beautiful, brilliant spaces,” Scholten said. ” … It’s unacceptable that we’ve got a newly completed child care centre being kept empty while families remain on a waitlist.”
The B.C. NDP’s decision, announced in February, to “pause” expansion of its $10-a-day child care program is to blame for the Coal Harbour centre sitting dark and empty, advocates say. And, they warn, other facilities already planned or under construction could soon meet the same fate, unless the next provincial government makes a change after this month’s election.
The VSOCC is B.C.’s largest non-profit dedicated to licensed child care, with a solid 30-year track record and 15 locations currently in operation, all of which are supported by the province to run at $10-a-day.
The NDP rolled out its universal child care plan in 2018, initially funding a limited number of $10-a-day spaces and aiming to expand it provincewide by 2028.
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But that expansion stalled in recent years, advocates say.
B.C. now has the most expensive child care fees in Canada, and while other provinces have been able to cap fees for all their child care programs in recent years — ranging from $10-a-day in Saskatchewan, to $15 in Alberta and $22 in Ontario — only 10 per cent of B.C.’s licensed spaces are capped at $10-a-day for lucky parents (and it’s estimated that fewer than 30 per cent of B.C. kids even have access to licensed child care).
Now, this year’s freeze on new $10-a-day spots means the Coal Harbour centre, which the city has been planning for at least eight years and spent $13 million to build, can no longer operate through that provincial funding program, Scholten said. Instead, it must apply for a different B.C. program called the child care fee reduction initiative, or CCFRI, she explained, and the gap between how much that program allows her non-profit to charge parents and what it needs to pay unionized staff to operate the facility would mean an annual operating shortfall of roughly $240,000 a year.
Further, the $10-a-day pause also risks the opening of at least two other planned Vancouver daycares, both supported by millions of dollars in funding and years of planning from city hall, where VSOCC has also been selected to operate. Those two facilities, in Marpole and Oakridge, could be ready for occupancy as soon as late 2026 and mid-2027, respectively, Scholten said, but for now, it’s unclear whether they’ll have the funding needed to actually welcome any kids.
There’s no shortage of demand, Scholten says: “We’ve got 5,000 families on our waiting list overall. That Coal Harbour centre — and Marpole and Oakridge — will be filled in a nanosecond.”
The issue of child care funding was thrust into the spotlight this week, when Global News reported that B.C. NDP Leader David Eby’s children use scarce $10-a-day spots. The Conservatives made political hay, calling Eby an “opportunistic hypocrite.”
But the critics’ focus on Eby’s household income is misplaced, says Sharon Gregson of the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of B.C. — and so, too, is Eby’s defence that his family donated to the child care provider because they determined they didn’t “need that discount.”
“The story is not that his family has access to $10-a-day child care, it’s that under his watch, it slowed down so that so many families don’t have access,” Gregson said. “If progress had continued the way it was supposed to, 80 per cent of the child care in the province would be $10-a-day, and then there is no story that he’s using it.”
And Eby’s donation “misses the point of universality,” Gregson says, because families aren’t required to make donations when kids attend public elementary schools or access health care in our society, because those crucial services are publicly funded and not means-tested.
Gregson says the city did its job delivering the Coal Harbour facility, and under several successive city councils now, the municipality has “been a leader in prioritizing child care.”
Vancouver Coun. Lisa Dominato said: “Coal Harbour families have waited too long for this centre, and we’re pushing to get its 69 spaces open as quickly as possible.”
The city has facilitated the opening of more than 2,000 new child care spaces since 2022, Dominato said. Her party, ABC Vancouver, is campaigning in this month’s election on adding more daycare spaces, as are the other parties. It’s a big part of every Vancouver political party’s platform.
But spaces alone aren’t a solution, without operating funding from senior levels of government.
The Education and Child Care Ministry declined to answer questions, explaining the government is in “temporary caretaker mode” during the B.C. election.
The NDP didn’t answer questions about the number of daycare facilities rendered unable to open by the funding pause. In an emailed statement sent last week — before Eby’s own family situation became news — the NDP said that since the 2018 launch of its universal child care plan the number of licensed spaces in B.C. has increased by 50 per cent, and the vast majority of operators are able to work within the system to deliver affordable child care services.
Still, the NDP said: “We have heard from the sector that the funding model can make it difficult to operate. That’s why, for the last six months, we have engaged in substantial consultations with the sector with the objective of arriving at a more sustainable funding model.”
“We know what the Conservatives would do. They would cut child care. That means higher costs and fewer spaces. We have made progress on child care, and we know there’s more to do. We won’t stop until the job is done.”
The Conservatives didn’t respond directly to the NDP’s claim that they would “cut child care” but sent an emailed statement saying: “We are committed to expanding quality, affordable child care options that fit parents’ work schedules, including qualified independent providers and meaningful parental choice.”
The B.C. Greens didn’t reply to a request for comment but started campaigning on child care funding within days of last month’s provincial snap election call, promising to “lift David Eby’s freeze on new $10-a-day child care spaces” and deliver universal, free, child care coverage within five years.
Katrina Chen was the NDP’s minister of state for child care in 2018, when the province launched the $10-a-day plan under then-Premier John Horgan. She declined to seek re-election in 2024 and now sits on the board of the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of B.C. Last week, Chen said the stalled expansion of the child care plan has placed “systemic pressures” on child care providers.
A strong child care policy is good economic policy, Chen said, and a substantial body of research shows the benefits of enabling parents to enter the workforce.
“It is disappointing to see how the government’s not continuing to follow through,” Chen said.
