Q+A | Julie Green on YWCA NWT's new downtown daycare proposal

CBC News

· Posted: May 26, 2025 1:35 PM EDT | Last Updated: 5 hours ago

A Yellowknife women's enactment has applied to the City of Yellowknife to physique a caller daycare, aft abandoning a erstwhile connection aft it was initially rejected by the city.

YWCA NWT wants  to unfastened a caller abstraction for 56 children successful the 3 bare tons adjacent to Boston Pizza connected 48th Street downtown. 

Julie Green is the president of the NWT YWCA. She spoke to Trailbreaker big Hilary Bird astir the plans for the daycare. 

This interrogation has been edited for clarity and length. 

Can you archer america much astir your latest daycare proposal?

We enactment successful an look of involvement papers to [the Department of Education, Culture and Employment] around Christmas, and they were giving distant 5 portables that were utilized astatine William McDonald School arsenic classrooms for children.

During the rebuild, the school, they acquired these portables... and past the schoolhouse opened and past they didn't request the portables anymore. So we enactment successful an look of involvement and we were granted them provisionally. Then we needed to find determination to enactment the portables, which are 4 schoolroom modulars and 1 bath modular. So we made an connection that was accepted connected those 3 tons connected 48th Street.

What is your program going guardant now? What peculiar support would you request from the metropolis to determination this task forward?

We request a variance and a improvement — a variance of the bylaw and a improvement permit. So what we're moving connected close present is the variance. The metropolis bylaw for that country of Yellowknife has a minimum tallness request for buildings of 2 stories, and the modulars are 1 storey and they're not stackable. 

So we person applied for a variance and our designer has designed a facade for the modulars that marque them look precise attractive. They don't look conscionable similar boxes and it besides raises the tallness of the streetscape to conscionable astir 2 storeys.

In the fall, CBC spoke with the YWCA and the metropolis astir a antithetic YWCA connection to physique a daycare. It would person been located successful Niven Lake neighbourhood. The metropolis amazed the YWCA by rejecting that application, citing postulation concerns. What made you determine to conscionable locomotion distant from that task and not possibly enactment unit connected the metropolis to effort and resoluteness it?

We met with the metropolis to effort and resoluteness that issue, and ultimately, they provided america with a missive that said this wasn't going to happen. There was nary constituent doing a postulation study. The postulation concern with the mode that country of Haener and Moyle Drive is designed makes it unsuitable for the benignant of prime up and driblet disconnected that would beryllium required astatine a daycare. 

Why is this task truthful important to the NWT YWCA?

Our ngo is to uplift women and assistance them recognize their afloat potential. And truthful a pistillate who can't find daycare successful bid to prosecute immoderate other she wants to bash successful her beingness — education, work, painting, immoderate it is, is truly constricted successful doing that if she's incapable to find daycare. So we're precise funny successful making daycare disposable for families, women successful particular, to thrive. 

Everybody gets what they request retired of the situation. The children get licensed nonrecreational daycare. The parents person clip to spell and bash what they request to bash without worrying astir however their children are being cared for.

Do you person a consciousness of when, if everything goes arsenic planned, arsenic erstwhile you could unfastened this facility?

I privation I had an nonstop day for you. The statement we person with ECE astir acquiring those modulars is that we would person a daycare unfastened by the extremity of March. And truthful that's our goal, that's what we're moving towards. So astatine immoderate constituent successful the future, we'll beryllium capable to archer the nationalist however they tin use for the daycare and the outgo and and each of those different details.

The YWCA NWT is hosting an unfastened location contiguous astatine 6 p.m. at Gotı̨li Kǫ̀ [5011 54th Street], where architectural drawings of the caller daycare volition beryllium disposable to the nationalist to view.