Courtenay-Comox MLA Brennan Day calls for immediate reversal of “moral failure” by NDP government.
VICTORIA, B.C.: With just days remaining before the provincial government’s October 31 freeze on overtime and agency staffing in long-term care and assisted living, Conservative MLA Brennan Day (Courtenay–Comox) is warning of an unfolding humanitarian crisis in seniors’ care.
“Nearly 850 vulnerable seniors across British Columbia now face displacement, neglect, or worse,” said Day. “This decision is already setting in motion a humanitarian crisis in seniors’ care, one that will unfold in full view of every community in this province.”
Day’s letter to Health Minister Josie Osborne highlights the immediate danger to frail seniors across the province:
- In one Interior community, all 30 long-term care beds are at risk of closure.
- In the Comox Valley, almost 100 medically fragile residents may be forced from their care homes.
- In the Lower Mainland, operators like the Three Links Care Society warn of insolvency, placing low-income seniors at risk of ending up “in emergency rooms or on the street.”
“Any savings you may see from the removal of this program will merely be spent on triage in third-world hallway care in hospitals across this province,” wrote Day. “These are not hypotheticals. These are lives, lives that depend on the compassion and competence of those entrusted to lead the Ministry of Health.”
Day condemned the move as “policy made in a vacuum” that betrays the trust of families and front-line caregivers who have carried the system through years of understaffing and exhaustion.
“The NDP government that once claimed to stand for compassion is now presiding over the largest single-day rollback in seniors’ care capacity in recent memory, and likely in BC history,” said Day. “There’s a reason 40 percent of nurses leave the profession before age 35, and it’s squarely on the culture created by the health authorities this Minister oversees.”
Day is calling on the Minister to extend the funding deadline, protect vulnerable residents, and deliver the long-promised new funding model for long-term and assisted living care.
“This decision is not merely a bureaucratic failure; it is a moral one,” said Day. “Long-term care and assisted living operators, both private and non-profit, deserve a funding model that actually works. Eight hundred and fifty vulnerable seniors across this province are waiting for that leadership. They deserve more than silence; they deserve action.”
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READ MLA DAY’S LETTER TO MINISTER OSBORNE
Media Contact:
Ryan Painter
Communications
Ryan.Painter@leg.bc.ca
