B.C.'S GROWTH FUELS HOST OF PROBLEMS

Frustrations with health care, affordability intensify when politicians ignore solutions

Close to 900,000 British Columbians don't have a family physician, waiting lists for specialists and surgeries are often unacceptably long, housing affordability remains elusive and people's patience is wearing thin.

Exacerbating those problems was last year's arrival of close to 100,000 people, one of the largest population increases in decades. Of those, 70 per cent were from outside Canada.

Now, with federal immigration targets set for 1.3 million in the coming three years, that level is likely to continue putting even more pressure on housing and health care.

But, paradoxically, things will also get worse without immigration as Canada's labour shortages become even more acute, especially in health care and construction.

There are solutions. But all require a much greater degree of federal-provincial co-operation and a lot less finger pointing.

If the B.C. government is not aware of people's mounting anxieties, Premier John Horgan and his ministers got stark reminders last week both in the legislature and on social media.

On social media, anger was sparked by the announcement that the three-month waiting period for health-care coverage will be waived for Ukrainians coming here under the federal government's special three-year visitor visa program because some will “need medical services immediately.”

It was the latest in a string of promised services for Ukrainians including “affordable and no-cost mental-health resources” — services that most British Columbians already have trouble accessing.

Good luck getting immediate care was the overwhelming social media response. It was followed by the inevitable questions about where the newcomers are going to find affordable housing.

No promises have yet been made about housing.

Ignored was the news release's statement that since Ukrainian children will also immediately be able to attend K-12 schools, school districts will be “encouraged” to waive additional fees for extracurricular activities.

Since B.C. already has one of the country's highest child poverty rates, teachers already rely on donations from non-profit organizations, including the Vancouver Sun Children's Fund to help needy families.

British Columbians' outrage over lousy health care and the housing crisis is more than justifiable. But when it comes to the Ukrainians, it's misdirected.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's promise to allow unlimited numbers of Ukrainians to come and work for up to three years was made on the fly.

While perhaps done with the best intentions, there was no consultation with bureaucrats, provinces, territories or settlement societies.

And, it's largely unsupported by the cold, hard cash needed even for temporary resettlement. More than 163,000 Ukrainians have applied so far and 56,000 have been accepted. And that's about all anyone knows about them.

Nobody knows whether they've applied as a kind of insurance policy in case the current situation wherever they are worsens.

Nobody knows when or where they might arrive or what services they might need. Not even federal Immigration Minister Sean Fraser.

He's admitted that it's “challenging” to predict whether they will follow historic patterns and choose Vancouver and Toronto.

“I would not be surprised if a significant number went to smaller communities in the Prairie provinces,” Fraser said at a news conference last month in Vancouver. “But we need the data.”

Of course, we need the data. But meantime, they're arriving.

“From the very beginning, we've had serious conversations with Ottawa about how we support the general direction (of bringing Ukrainians to Canada). But they need to help us back,” Nathan Cullen, B.C.'s minister responsible for immigration, said in an interview.

He said it was at B.C.'s insistence that the federal government recently agreed to provide Ukrainians with six weeks of income support and two weeks' worth of housing in hotels.

So will Ottawa cough up more money for health care, education and housing?

“I sure hope so,” he said. Since the mid-1990s, the federal government largely absolved itself of both the responsibility for and the cost of affordable housing. Since then, the affordable housing crisis has spiralled out of control.

Over a similar period, health costs have also skyrocketed. Now, they're exacerbated by COVID and an aging population.

Once, federal health transfers accounted for half the provincial health costs. Now, with provincial health spending taking up 40 per cent of the budget, federal transfers cover only about 20 per cent of that. And then there's the shortage of health care workers.

In an interview with my colleague Katie DeRosa, the premier said last week that one of the problems is that when “100,000 people came to B.C. last year … they didn't bring a doctor with them.”

He's wrong.

Every year, qualified doctors, nurses and other health professionals arrive.

Every year, hundreds of them are told that getting licensed to practise will cost them thousands of dollars and take up to four years.

British Columbia took steps earlier this month to make it easier for nurses to qualify. But it's fighting a court battle against international medical graduates — including Canadians who trained outside Canada — to restrict their access to residency spots, which are a crucial step to licensure.

British Columbians' patience is wearing thin because they know there are solutions. What they increasingly distrust is that there is the political leadership needed to enact them.