Affordability, job security in the natural resource sector, and healthcare.
BC United Cariboo North MLA Coralee Oakes says those are the big three when it comes to concerns that constituents have heading into 2024.
Oakes says “2023 is the year where we saw a lot of cumulative challenges from affordability to healthcare to housing, and I think policies are really starting to catch up with what is happening on the ground for people. I think there are a couple of fundamental things we need to look at. When you increase taxes and you make us the most expensive jurisdiction, a to run a business or to look at the agricultural sector as an example, it has real implications on the ground and we’re seeing that in our communities.”
Oakes says seniors have been particularly hard hit.
She says they also are impacted more in many cases when it comes to healthcare.
“Whether it’s accessing cancer care to hip and knee replacement to just ambulance wait times, we have a lot of constituent files on those topics. We’re hoping that some of the measures that the government is taking will see improvements in theses areas, but it continues to be alarming.”
Oakes says she has also heard a lot of concerns around public safety, which she says is why her party has come up with a safer plan.
“We identified a lot of things that were necessary in order to address that and it includes everything from our approach to sentencing, treating crimes seriously, pursuing civil consequences for trafficking of drugs and causing of deaths, but also ensuring we have the right balance in our rural areas to address mental health and addictions. We need treatment in the north and in our rural communities, and we need access to mental health supports.”
Right now, Oakes says the services are actually declining.
She says food security is another challenge in the Cariboo and right across the province.
“When you look at the food cost, the input costs currently that the agricultural sector in BC are faced with, it’s just making that sector uncompetitive. When it’s still cheaper to truck in lettuce from California or potatoes from Idaho, we have to look at how the sector in BC is doing. When we are so much more expensive to operate a business in British Columbia that’s going to have significant impacts.”
Oakes says that also has an impact on the green house emissions that come from transporting our agricultural products into the province.
Finally, she says there are challenges emerging with education as well.
“More parents are coming into my office this past year to discuss impacts on their children, long wait times to access any type of youth related supports, even general diagnosis of any neurodiverse conditions to mental health to speech and language, the waiting lists are so long in our community that it’s having significant impacts. We just don’t have the resources or the people to support many of our children with disabilities that are in the public education system. For so many of these children, they’re falling through the cracks. Parents are doing their best to educate them, but they’re having to do that at home because quite frankly we don’t have the people or the resources in our public education system. ‘
Looking back at 2023, Oakes says there were some highlights including the expansion of G.R. Baker Hospital, the new high school and the completion of the new West Fraser Road.
