Cariboo North BC United MLA Coralee Oakes accuses the NDP of doing “victory laps” in the Throne Speech for things that are just not happening.
“They kept talking about how healthcare is improving and about how many new doctors they have in the system. Well just take a look at what is happening in Quesnel, we’re losing doctors. They talk about how they are increasing nursing staff. Well again talk to our healthcare providers on the front line. They talk about what a great job they’re doing around bringing the costs of things down but look at your heating bill and your groceries and your rent.”
Oakes says the exact opposite has happened.
“By every single metric things are not better in British Columbia and you look at the fact that they’re been in government now for 7 years things are not better than when they formed government in 2017. My concern is that they have such a big government approach to everything, whether it’s housing, the public service, you are increasing taxes, you are increasing red tape and regulation and that’s just makes things more unaffordable for the average British Columbian.
Oakes says it was a “status quo” Throne Speech with a lot of rhetoric and not a lot of details.
She says seniors are getting particularly hard hit.
“Last week we had the Seniors Advocate in Quesnel, a very important presentation by the advocate, on just a lack of healthcare in rural British Columbia, specifically supports for seniors. We have 70 percent fewer acute care beds in rural BC, 20 percent fewer home care supports , 55 percent fewer publicly subsidized supports for housing. When you starting seeing somebody poll all of our lived experience in rural BC into a report, you start to see inequities in rural BC.”
Oakes says she is hopeful that the budget will address that, but considering it is an election year, she says “the NDP will just continue to do their investments in urban BC where there is a larger percentage of voters.”
