By Steve Hubrecht
On-the-ground construction of the Canal Flats child care centre has been stalled for the past few months, but village staff are still optimistic that the centre could open this winter.
Canal Flats council members were updated on the project, which is meant to offer day care and preschool space for up to 40 local kids, during a recent council meeting.
Canal Flats chief administrative officer, Adrian Bergles, explained that a few factors have been holding up physical construction, including delays with the roofing system. The roofing system is a critical part of the centre, and has to be imported, which Bergles outlined is where the holdup comes from. “Apparently, it is at the (Canada-U.S.) border, in customs,” he says. “Everybody’s anxious for that building to go forward and for that programming to begin.”
The village has been working on creating a childcare centre for the past couple of years. Currently, families with infants, toddlers and preschoolers needing daycare must drive to Windermere or Invermere. As Canal Flats residents and village council members have mentioned in the past, a day care commute back and forth between Canal Flats and Invermere or Windermere in both morning and evening amounts to more than two hours of driving simply to pick up and drop off kids.
Despite the hold on construction, a good deal of bureaucratic work has been done “behind the scenes,” and permits have been secured over the summer and into the fall, says Bergles, adding he is not anticipating any problems with construction going forward once the roof system arrives.
Canal Flats councillor, Bill Lake, asked Bergles if he had an estimated start date for the centre.
“It’s difficult to say at this time…until construction has recommenced,” notes Bergles, adding that he is hopeful the centre may possibly be operational as early as sometime around Christmas or New Year, but that he can’t guarantee anything.
Bergles said that, with permitting issues now mostly sorted, “I am optimistic. It is an unusual time for (construction) firms in terms of how it can be challenging to find labour, but I have no reason not to be confident.”
“It’s a high profile project, and everybody wants to see it run through the finish line,” says Canal Flats mayor, Karl Sterzer, adding that, based on his background in construction, “once that roof is on, we’ll probably see work progress quite quickly.”
Councillor, Marie Delorme, asked Bergles when the centre would hire a manager. Bergles replies that, “in an ideal world,” the hire would come in about two months time, allowing the manager to recruit staff and develop programming ahead of the opening. “A number of staff will be needed to run the centre. The child care centres in the Columbia Valley, many of them have a shortage of early childhood educators,” he says, noting that the total number of staff necessary to operate the centre is probably at least six, and that figure would make the future child care centre one of the larger employers in the village.
Upon hearing that, Sterzer chimed in that he feels “a sense of urgency,” not with the construction, but in terms of the challenges that may come in trying to recruit enough qualified staff for the centre to open in time.
