- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- North Island—Powell River
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $145,542.18
- Government Page
- Oct/27/23 11:46:16 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday in my riding, a 13-year-old overdosed at a local business. Luckily, a nurse and local firefighters saved her life, and I am so grateful.
In B.C. alone, more than 1,800 people have died this year due to the toxic drug supply. The Liberals have delayed mental health funding while people die, and the Conservatives want to punish people who are struggling.
When will the Liberals deliver a national health-based plan to address the toxic drug crisis?
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- Feb/16/23 5:04:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am really disappointed that the member does not see the reality happening on the ground and the fact that the federal contribution to health care used to be substantively more. This is with every different government. It goes down and down.
This is about saying that across this country we deserve health care for everyone. It means the federal government has to take that up.
I will tell the member what is happening with loopholes. Private companies in this country are inviting people from one province to another to get help at a much higher rate. When we look at this administratively, in the U.S. over 30% of costs are administrative. When it comes to medicare, less than 2% of costs are administrative. This makes sense. It is the best for the economy. It is the best for the community. It is the best for health care in Canada.
I hope the member will fight for that just as strongly as I am willing to.
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Madam Speaker, in my riding we are really struggling to find health care providers. One of the things that we have heard loud and clear as the biggest challenge is child care, and a lot of people in the health care industry are women.
I am wondering if the member could speak a little about the impact this could have on women to open doors for them to enter the workforce and the very clear example we have seen in Quebec.
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- Dec/6/22 7:18:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as always I am honoured to be here in this place and talk on behalf of the constituents of North Island—Powell River. I am really sad to be here today. I never thought I would be sharing concerns with the House of Commons that constituents of mine are now afraid because of the total lack of health care.
The federal government has paid less and less into health care transfers, and provinces and territories are struggling. We knew, and it has been talked about in this country for a very long time, that we had an increasing population of people who are aging and that there are challenges in recruiting and retaining health care providers, and we still have not seen any meaningful action from the government.
I have spoken about this issue before in the House, and I will continue to do so. We are in a significant crisis. People in my riding are paying the price of that crisis. I receive emails and calls daily from remote communities in my riding, like Port Hardy, Port McNeill and Alert Bay, especially because their emergency rooms are being closed far too often.
All night long, emergency rooms are closed. That means if anyone has any serious health issue, they have to travel quite a distance to get somewhere that can help them. People who live in Alert Bay are on an island, so that is even more problematic.
Just last week, a constituent with serious health issues got themselves to the Port Hardy hospital. They arrived and, upon arrival, found out that the emergency room was closed. They collapsed. An ambulance was called, and they had to be taken to another community to be served.
Closures of emergency rooms are directly linked in our riding to a lack of staff. They are tired; they are burnt out, and they are leaving. The federal government must stand with its provincial counterparts to support strategies to both attract and retain health care professionals across Canada's rural communities. It is not sustainable, what is happening right now, and it is not safe.
Constituents are sharing stories of having to travel a long distance to get basic care. This cannot continue. Recently, an article came out about rural communities and pregnant people having to travel a long distance to get the services they need. When they do so, the pregnant person is paying out of pocket for a place to live and something to eat. Often, they are left alone, because their spouse or partner is back home looking after children or working, doing the things they need to do to sustain the family.
Someone who shared their story was from Port McNeill. Her name is Darci. She told a terrible story of being left alone and missing her partner, who was doing everything he could to support her. Finally, she gave birth to their child without her partner.
This issue is long-standing, but we are seeing it across the board, an increasing closure of so many services. For example, in Campbell River, the hospital lab is closed many days due to a severe shortage of staff. This means outpatients are arriving and finding it closed, and we know that overworked staff and exhausted lab staff are ready to leave and are looking for other opportunities.
We also know that doctors, nurses and health care professionals across the board are exhausted, tired and wanting to leave. We do not have a meaningful attraction strategy to bring newcomers and other folks from across Canada to be in our communities.
I want to thank the Citizens for Quality Health Care and other health care advocates from north Vancouver Island and Powell River, who have been warning about this for over three years, since before the pandemic. This is serious, and it needs to be addressed.
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- Nov/1/22 6:33:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am here today to talk about public health care. In this country, we are seeing public health care being undermined and falling apart in profound ways. I am seeing it fall apart in my riding in ways that I could never have imagined just a few years ago.
Before I talk about the specific issue, I want to take this opportunity to thank the health care workers, all the professionals, doctors, nurses and all the support staff around them who supported us through the pandemic.
We have heard all of the stats about having a high level of burnout. A lot of folks who were planning to work for many more years are retiring early because of the stress and because of those real concerns. I want to thank them and honour their work.
We also know that health care across Canada has reached a crisis point. For months in my riding, emergency rooms have been closing in Port Hardy, Port McNeill and Alert Bay.
For Canadians who do not know, Alert Bay is a ferry community on Malcolm Island. Receiving health care in its hospital is key because people cannot drive somewhere quickly. That is a major concern.
There have been multiple weeks of some of these hospitals being shut down and their emergency rooms being shut down all night long. I cannot imagine how terrifying it is for my constituents to know they do not have an emergency room around the corner if they desperately need it in the middle of the night.
In fact, in October, Port Hardy's emergency room was closed for 28 nights of the month. There were 28 nights with no emergency room facilities. The reason is a lack of staffing. There are not enough doctors, not enough nurses and not enough people to provide those essential services.
In this country, we are watching our national public health care system fall apart at the seams. I am here to plead for my constituents. I am coming before this place to ask the federal government to step up and start doing its part.
Whenever I think of universal public health care, I think of Tommy Douglas. He was voted the greatest Canadian because of his fundamental work in public health care and in making sure that was a reality in Canada.
We have heard the stories before the system was in place of people losing absolutely everything because they had to pay for health care to try to save the lives of loved ones. Tommy Douglas said, “I came to believe that health services ought not to have a price tag on them, and that people should be able to get whatever health services they required irrespective of their individual capacity to pay.”
We know that Canadians believe in public health care. We know that any form of privatization promises only a return to everyday Canadians who rely on their individual capacity to pay for health care. I hope the government is going to stand against that.
I am tired of hearing that this is a provincial or territorial responsibility. This is a joint responsibility, one where we are seeing very clearly the premiers of every province and territory stand up. They are doing a collective ad campaign calling on the federal government to step up and pay its part. That is tremendously important. How often do all premiers agree so specifically on something?
Rural and remote communities across the country have been left behind. The federal government needs to step up and make sure there is a meaningful strategy for health care for communities like mine. They are desperately waiting.
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- Oct/31/22 3:06:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, last week, a North Island resident told me she is scared for the safety of her family because of the Port Hardy Hospital emergency room closures. There is not enough staff to keep it open. This is a crisis. Canadians cannot access public health care. Rural communities have been left behind by underfunding for health care by both Conservative and Liberal governments.
Will the government finally listen to the pleas of British Columbians for more federal funding for public health care?
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Mr. Speaker, as we move forward with making sure that people have the rapid tests they need to continue to address the realities of COVID, we know that in Canada we are still not seeing the investment that we need to support local businesses in being able to provide PPE and other necessary requirements for us to deal with these kinds of health concerns. That is unfortunate.
I wonder if the member could explain why the government is not taking that dedication and especially making sure that we are never in a place again like we were at the beginning of the pandemic when we could not even find the things that we desperately because they simply were not created in our country.
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