A crowd of around 150 people gathered at the Nanaimo Golf Club Wednesday night, to hear from six candidates running in two Nanaimo-centric provincial ridings. (Alex Rawnsley/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Alex Rawnsley

many voices

Healthcare headlines forum for Nanaimo election candidates

Oct 10, 2024 | 4:21 PM

NANAIMO — Interactions between candidates were largely limited to a couple of subtle jabs during the latest all-candidates forum for the 2024 B.C. election.

All six candidates running in the two Nanaimo-based ridings appeared before a crowd of around 150 people at the Nanaimo Golf Club on Wednesday, Oct. 9, answering questions on a range of topics from healthcare to social disorder, housing and taxation.

The event was sponsored by the Greater Nanaimo Chamber of Commerce, although pre-screened questions were sourced from a handful of local organizations and boards.

Healthcare was a common backbone of many questions, ranging from promises to build a new patient tower at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital to access to a primary care physician.

Nanaimo-Gabriola NDP candidate Sheila Malcolmson said having ready access to a family doctor is “the biggest issue” she hears canvassing the riding.

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“That’s work that we’ve been working really hard to get ahead of, 4000 people every week now are being connected with a family doctor so that we can care for people so they don’t get to a crisis place.”

She added cuts to healthcare in the early 2010’s meant the NDP inherited an “under invested healthcare system in Nanaimo”, however the party has made strides in recent years including additions to NRGH and construction of a second urgent primary care clinic behind Country Club Centre.

Gwen O’Mahony, a BC Conservative candidate running in Nanaimo-Lantzville implied additions to the hospital should have come much sooner.

She said the BC Conservatives would also prioritize a new patient tower at NRGH.

“We want to make sure that we do it timely and we do it on budget, and that has to do with having good governance, and really understanding the situation,” O’Mahony said, going on to mention she’d spoken with several builders in the area. “I asked a simple question, why is it taking so long. They said that it just gets caught up at government, everything’s done and the proposal gets caught up in government.”

BC Green Party candidate for Nanaimo-Lantzville Lia Versaevel said the NDP announcement of a new patient tower for Nanaimo was “really disheartening to see”, also suggesting it was long overdue.

“…that as a political campaign piece, the former government committed to building the patient tower. We need to bring resources together quickly and motivate the new government, hopefully, with many green MLAs to hold the government accountable, to build this facility right away.”

Candidates fielded questions on a variety of topics, including the economy, job creation, community safety and the non-profit sector. (L-R) Lia Versaevel (Green), Dale Parker (CON), Gwen O’Mahony (CON), Sheila Malcolmson (ND)), Shirley Lambrecht (Green), and George Anderson (NDP). (Alex Rawnsley/NanaimoNewsNOW)

Combatting calls from other parties suggesting the NDP hadn’t taken adequate action on healthcare, Nanaimo-Lantzville candidate George Anderson said the party over the last seven years has made strides repairing related infrastructure.

“Build up our healthcare system from a place where John Rustad…[in] 2012 we had the worst Intensive Care Unit in Canada. And what did the BC NDP government do? Fixed it, building a new cancer centre, building a new high acuity unit…building up our system that the Conservatives cut.

Dale Parker, running as a BC Conservative candidate in Nanaimo-Gabriola Island, said the NDP’s 2024 platform pertaining to healthcare mirrors a lot of what was promised in 2020.

He said promises of faster care, reduced wait times and more doctors were all made then, but a considerable number of people are still without easy access.

“We know there’s a million people in B.C. without doctors. They promised a better life for seniors and well, some of them are living in their cars and they’ve been reduced to ashes in poverty by these punishing taxes on everything they do. They promised more affordable housing, and here we are in a record crisis in housing.”

During her closing statement, Nanaimo-Gabriola Green Party candidate Shirley Lambrecht said a two-party system is not the best path forward for British Columbia, and the Greens would look to force accountability if they’re unable to form government.

“Minority governments work very well. It’s important to have diverse voices at the table…representing more people, and that’s one of the reasons why I feel it’s very important that we have more Green representation in the legislature.”

The format of Wednesday’s forum saw each candidate asked different questions, which limited the interaction or debate between those on stage.

One of the only crossovers between candidates was when Malcolmson attempted off mic to refute O’Mahony’s expectations around hospital construction times, apparently suggesting they were unrealistic.

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