VICTORIA, B.C.: More than 50,000 B.C. nurses have voted 98.2 per cent in favour of strike action, the strongest mandate in the B.C. Nurses Union’s history. After six months of bargaining with no meaningful offer, B.C. nurses have made it clear they are prepared to fight for the working conditions they deserve.

“Nurses are being pushed to their breaking point,” said MLA Anna Kindy, Critic for Health. “They are being assaulted on the job, exposed to open drug use in their workplaces, and expected to absorb caseloads no one person should carry. These are the people keeping our hospitals running, and they deserve a government that takes their concerns seriously.”

There are currently 4,500 vacant nursing positions across the province that cannot be filled, placing significant strain on an already stretched workforce. That shortage did not happen overnight. B.C.’s health care system has faced a prolonged crisis under the NDP, marked by years of mismanagement, chronic staffing shortages, hospital closures, and a failure to address the conditions pushing nurses out of the profession. Nurses have raised these concerns for years. This vote is the consequence of those concerns going unaddressed.

“What nurses are asking for is long overdue,” said Kindy. “They want safe nurse-to-patient ratios, proper compensation, and workplaces free from violence. Addressing those conditions is not just a matter of fairness. It is the only real path to retaining the nurses B.C. already has. Recruitment alone cannot solve a retention crisis.”

While this vote does not mean nurses will walk off the job immediately, it gives them the legal authority to take job action. Any form of job action will place further strain on a health care system already struggling to meet demand.

“This government has had every opportunity to address what is driving nurses away from the profession, and it has not,” Kindy said. “Nurses do not feel safe at work, and they are being stretched beyond what any person can reasonably sustain. This government needs to get serious at the bargaining table before British Columbians lose even more access to care they are already struggling to find.”

“The B.C. Conservatives stand firmly with B.C.’s nurses,” Kindy said. “They deserve a safe workplace and a fair contract, and we will continue to hold this government accountable until they get one.”

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