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VICTORIA – Premier Christy Clark said her government will offer to spend $1 billion to make child care virtually free for middle-income families when her government returns to the legislature Thursday for its throne speech.

Clark said the proposed new funding to help parents find affordable child care and early childhood education is one of the lessons her party learned from voters when it lost seats in the May 9 election.

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“When you need child care, you need it now,” she told a told a B.C. Liberal party women’s lunch event on Wednesday.

“People said in the election they wanted us to do more on child care, we heard that really loudly and clearly,” she told reporters after her speech. “Elections are about listening to people and responding, it’s not about stubbornly saying you know what’s right.”

The money would come from amending February’s Liberal budget, said Clark, and would create 60,000 new spaces over four years, in addition to 13,000 new spaces promised earlier by her government.