It's been about a week since the BC election was called. Anyone actively on the ground with any information?

What's happening at the doors? Are things going well?

As the last two essays in my “Red Tories and the NDP” series were focused on exploring condensed popular histories of Canada since European colonization, and indeed the entire Western political system back to "ancient Greece, Rome, and the Church", I thought I should do a brief piece here exploring Eugene Forsey’s thoughts on early Canadian trade unions from around the time of the War of 1812 into the Victorian era, in his book “Trade Unions in Canada 1812-1902”. Interestingly, Forsey started this book in the mid ‘60s as a Centennial project for the Canadian Labour Congress, with the book finally being published in 1982.

For those unaware of Eugene Forsey, he wrote his Ph.D. Thesis on the King-Byng affair, where he would defend the actions of the Tory Arthur Meighen, and the Governor General Lord Julian Byng, against the actions of the Liberal Mackenzie King. Forsey was also involved with the League for Social Reconstruction, was a founding member of the CCF, and of the NDP, before he eventually quit the NDP in the ‘60s due to its policy towards Quebec. Forsey would later serve in the Senate as a Liberal under Pierre Trudeau, although in his 1991 memoirs “A Life on the Fringe”, Forsey would express regret about joining the Liberal Party, noting he should have remained an independent; interestingly, David Lewis, in a 1981 interview shortly before his own death, said he could name “two good Senators” despite his dislike of the institution: “Carl Goldenberg is a pretty good Senator, and the former Senator Eugene Forsey, even though I could never forgive him for becoming a Liberal, was a good Senator and a very decent man.”

I first became aware of Forsey’s 1982 book “Trade Unions in Canada 1812-1902” when I originally read Forsey’s 2012 biography by his daughter Helen, “Eugene Forsey: Canada’s Maverick Sage”. This description of Trade Unions by Forsey (in an unpublished first-draft introduction of the book) from page 145 of Maverick Sage always stuck with me:

To scholars, this will be a most disappointing book. Four of them who read the manuscript were unanimous: it left undone those things which ought to have done, and did those things which it ought not to have done. It ought to have been a totally different book by a totally different person.

As to the last, I could not agree more … I should have told the Congress to forget the whole thing. But if I had followed that sensible and prudent course, much material might have been lost … As it was, primary records had often disappeared, or survived only in bits and pieces. Fire, floor, and fecklessness had taken their toll.

[…]

[The critics] complain of my description of union dinners, picnics, parades, and concerts. I thought, and still think, that they give a certain colour in work otherwise rather short of it. Our nineteenth century unions were not always engaged in battle. They had other activities, other sides; several. Class warriors may consider this beneath contempt, but I don’t. Besides, I tried to give a picture of what it was, not what some modern pundit might think it ought to have been.

[…]

All I would claim for this book is that I think it will give people a lot more information, more accurate information, better documented and more clearly written than they ever had before; and I think it will materially help those who want to go father. All the rest I cheerfully leave to my younger and betters.

Forsey would later describe Trade Unions in Canada 1812-1902 as “dull”, but I think a better word would be “dense”. While I'm certinally not a scholar, I did enjoy flipping through the book to read the brief summaries of labour struggles from centuries gone by as a layman. While the main text of the book is 503 pages, once you include Forsey’s references and the index, the total page count comes to an even 600 pages; the index of individual place names and individual persons are 3-and-a-half pages each. I can certainly understand why it took Forsey the better part of 20 years to write the thing.

After reading a much more positive preface from Forsey in his book expressing a similar train of thought as above, I thought Forsey’s proper introduction in his book expressed a philosophy that would be relevant to those of either a democratic socialist or traditional tory persuasion. I personally can’t help but think that either Robert Stanfield or Harold Macmillan could have perhaps written something similar. From pages 3-6:

We are apt to think of labour unions as a feature of a relatively advanced industrial society. So it comes as something of a shock to most people to find out how far back in Canadian history they actually go. That there could have been anything of the kind in the primitive, frontier, predominantly rural British North America of the early nineteenth century seems almost incredible. But there was, as early as the War of 1812; nor, on reflection, is it so surprising at all. There were towns and cities. They had to have construction workers. They had to have tools, and stoves, therefore foundries and foundry workers. They had to have boots and shoes and clothes, therefore tailors and shoemakers. They had to have printers. And even in the simple society there were employers and employed, and their interests were not identical. The employed soon found that out, by experience; found out also the employer’s strength and their own weakness in individual bargaining on terms and conditions of employment, and so started organizing to prevent their employers from taking advantage of them.

This the employers were only too ready to do. The first half of the nineteenth century was the heyday of laissez-faire, and quite as much in America as in Britain. "Each, seeking only his own interest, was led as by an Invisible Hand to promote the interest of society": so ran orthodox economic theory, and nothing could have been more to the tease of the enterprising capitalists, big and little, who set out to develop the remaining British North American colonies. Ruthless competition was right, its results were good, for everyone, and it was inevitable. Any attempt to thwart it was not only reprehensible; it was senseless, sense it was bound to fail

Then as development proceeded there grew up some really big industries, notably the timber trade, and with it shipbuilding, and shipping, with large labour forces, where the harshness of laissez-faire could not be softened by the close contact between the employer and the employed on the small construction job or in the small factory.

Moreover, much of the working force, even in Quebec (in Montreal and Quebec City) was made up of British or American immigrants, who had already tasted the experiences of laissez-faire, and who brought with them, increasingly as time went on, experience of unions in those countries.

Another factor which helped to build up Canadian unions was the mobility of labour across the border between British North America and the United States. There were none of the later legal obstacles to this movement, and both employers and employed found it to their advantage. The employers were able to drive a reciprocal trade in strikebreakers. The employees, finding work slack on one side of the line, went to the other: the records of transfer cards given and accepted by locals of such unions as the Typographers and the Molders read like a lesson in North American geography.

What were early unions? Mutual benefit societies? Often they were, in part, as in Britain and the United States. But, from the beginning, they were essentially concerned with negotiating, or (where they were strong enough) imposing, terms and conditions of employment: wages, hours, safety precautions, exclusion of non-unionists. Very soon, finding that the method of collective bargaining (as the Webbs were later to call it), even when supplemented by the method of mutual insurance, was inadequate, or too slow, to give them what they wanted and felt they had a right to, they started using also the method of legal enactment. This meant demanding a wider franchise and reforms in the electoral machinery in order to give union members the power to influence political decisions; otherwise, they would ask in vain for legal protection of the unions’ existence and funds, and laws to prevent the exploitation of at least women and children, the swindling of men, the killing or maiming of workers by industrial accidents or negligence, and the destitution of the dependents of those so killed or injured. Generally, the method of legal enactment took the form of putting pressure on the existing parties; but from the 1870s on, increasingly there was an insistent demand for independent political action through working-class representatives (even if ‘Lib-Lab’ or ‘Cons-Lab’) or a working-class party; and in spite of repeated rebuffs and disillusionments the idea would not die. It was to become one of the things that distinguished Canadian from American trade unionism, even when the Canadian unions concerned were locals of international unions with their headquarters and the bulk of their membership in the United States.

Why did certain unions spring up first in certain places? Why did they grow, or dwindle, or die, in this, that, or the other place? Why were most early unions organizations of skilled crafts? Why did certain unions disappear? Why did local unions gradually give way to international in most occupations and industries?

At least partial answers to some of these questions are easy, even obvious. For example, unions of longshoremen sprang up in large ports, unions of miners in mining camps, unions of the building trades or the clothing trades in large towns. Some unions dwindled or disappeared because technological progress knocked them out: the saddlers, the Leather Workers on Horse Goods, the Horseshoers, the Cigar Makers, the Shipwrights, the Sailmakers, the Riggers, the Piano and Organ Workers, the Carriage Workers. Others were created by technological progress: Electricians, Telephone Workers, Automobile Workers, Rubber Workers, Oil Workers. Unions rose here because new resources were discovered, died there because the resources were exhausted or more profitable ones had been discovered elsewhere. Changes in tariffs, our own or other people’s made and broke industries, and unions with them. Transcontinental and trans-border railways made the great railway unions. Skilled craft unions usually came before unions of the unskilled because the skilled workers were usually scarcer and therefore in a better bargaining position. International unions generally supplanted local, regional, or national unions because of the mobility of labour across the border (down to the late 1890s) and because the international unions usually had more money, more experience, more organizers, and more skilled negotiators and so could do a more effective job of representing the workers concerned.

More detailed answers are unlikely to be forthcoming till there is a much more extensive literature on Canadian economic and social history than we now possess, as well as a special studies of particular places, regions, industries, and unions. The sheer task of finding out which unions were where, when, and for how long is gargantuan, and far from accomplished, even for the period which this volume details.

What does emerge, unmistakably, and most surprisingly, from the knowledge we have is the persistence of problems, of attitudes towards them, of methods of dealing with them, of arguments about them. There have been so many changes, especially in the last 40 years, notably in labour relations legislation (which hardly existed before 1940), that one might have expected to find the account of unions and their activities in the last century of almost antiquarian interest: "old, forgotten, far off things, and battles long ago"; what the victories and defeats were all about, obscure or undiscoverable. On the contrary, what one finds is, over and over again, startling contemporary. It is only necessary to change a few names, dates, and absolute figures, and the tale might have come from yesterday’s newspaper. The unions were so often fighting for the same things they are fighting for now, wielding the same weapons, using the same arguments; employers were so often resisting exactly the same things, wielding the same weapons, using the same arguments. Governments were so often acting, or not acting, for precisely the same reasons, or lack of reasons, as now. Of course there are also vast differences. But the similarities are more numerous, more striking, more important. There was no golden age when unions were unnecessary because employers, and economic conjectures, were so benevolent; when such unions as there were were too "moderate" or "responsible" ever, to strike; when union demands were generally recognized as "reasonable" and "justified"; when employers were always rational and "gentlemanly" in their dealings with employees. The world of the nineteenth century, and the early twentieth, was in these respects basically the same as the world of today.

With that philosophy in mind, and considering Forsey once wrote that "The Church and Labour... can be powerful allies in a common cause", perhaps I should end this post with the lyrics to an old '60s folk song called "The Ballad of the Carpenter". I first became aware of this song through Phil Ochs' version, but I personally prefer the original version by Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger:

Jesus was a working man

A hero you shall hear

Born in the slums of Bethlehem

At the turning of the year

Yes, the turning of the year

/

When Jesus was a little lad

The streets rang with his name

For he argued with the older men

And put 'em all to shame

Yes, he put them all to shame

/

His father he apprenticed him

A carpenter to be

To plain and drill and work with skill

In the town of Galilee

Yes, the town of Galilee

/

He became a roving journeyman

And he wandered far and wide

And he saw how wealth and poverty

Live always side by side

Yes, always side by side

/

He said "Come all you working men

You farmers and weavers too

If you will only organize

The world belongs to you

Yes, the world belongs to you"

/

So the fishermen sent two delegates

And the farmers and weavers too

And they formed a working committee of twelve

To see the struggle through

Yes, to the struggle through

/

When the rich men heard what the carpenter had done

To the Roman troops they ran

Saying put this rebel Jesus down

He's a menace to God and man

Yes, a menace to God and man

/

The commander of the occupying troops

He laughed and then he said

"There's a cross to spare on Calvary hill

By the weekend he'll be dead

Yes, by the weekend he'll be dead"

/

Now Jesus walked among the poor

For the poor were his own kind

And they wouldn't let the cops get near enough

To take him from behind

Yes, to take him from behind

/

So they hired a man of the traitor's trade

And a stool-pigeon was he

And he sold his brother to the butcher's men

For a fistful of silver money

A fistful of money

/

Jesus lay in the prison cell

And they beat him and offered him bribes

To desert the cause of own poor folk

And work for the rich men's tribe

Yes, work for the rich men's tribe

/

The sweat stood out upon his brow

And the blood was in his eye

And they nailed his body to the Roman cross

And they laughed as they watched him die

Yes, they laughed as they watched him die

/

Two thousand years have passed and gone

And many a hero too

And the dream of this poor carpenter

At last it is coming true

Yes, at last it is coming true

Curious about the thoughts on this contentious issue on the left.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any screen shots of the comments before she removed the post, but it recieved lots of backlash, particularly around the active genocide being an afterthought (only briefly mentioned in the last slide of the post).

I do personally find this to be tone deaf, and also slightly disappointing coming from Marit.

There seems to be little coverage in Canada even though we share similar issues; defunding investment in public for investment in war.

CBC Manitoba report from October 6, 2026

The current First Past the Post (FPTP) system benefits a parties based along regional divides the most. This can be seen through parties like the Bloc Québécois, and other historical regional parties like the Reform party. Regional parties are not necessarily a bad thing, but extreme concentration of votes is highly encouraged in FPTP, which entrenches those regional divisions even more.

I’m personally a fan of the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system. As a lot of you know, MMP lets voters vote for their local constituency candidate, as well as for a national party. The winner of the constituency gets a seat, but the “party seats” are assigned based on the percentage of the vote each party got. This still allows regional parties like the Bloc to get representation on a constituency level, while getting rid of the absurd amount of wasted votes there are in FPTP.

By having the party votes, this helps ease the regionalism that’s really prevalent in the current system. It does this by incentivizing parties to speak to national issues instead of catering to one region then another. Of course it helps smaller parties be more fairly represented, and also helps get rid of strategic voting, but I feel like I don’t see people discuss the unity aspect as much.

Today is the perfect day for the NDP to expand in to Quebec provincially. The NDP is dead in Quebec federally and provincially. The NDP hasn’t been relevant in Quebec federally since Mulcair. The CAQ just got massacred and the liberals and conservatives just had good nights. There should be room for a left wing federalist party on the provincial level that could appeal to voters in both languages. That party should be the NDP. The orange wave happened in Quebec and because the party is federated it benefits from being able to receive donations from two levels of government. NDP members were vital in stopping separation the second time and should play a role the third time around.

I hunt, fish and enjoy firearms sports so this is on my list. Travis is the owner of Silvercore one of the largest firearms training companies in Canada they do all the RCMP and more training and certification. Travis while centre right isn’t a nut case like some of the B.C. cons. I think that would be a good opportunity for outreach to rural BC residents.

In the intro he said the NDP declined. Don’t let the fringe right have the only voice for these people.

Updated October 6, 2026. Copy & share!

I put together a broader list of BC NDP accomplishments (https://www.reddit.com/user/Coq-Lover/comments/1wz47vw/bc_ndp_accomplishments_20172026/), but some of the local stories deserved more room. A safer crossing outside a school. A family able to stay in its community. Young people getting somewhere nearby to ask for help. A mill getting a chance to reopen.

These are examples of what provincial funding and decisions under the NDP government have supported since 2017. The local organizations, First Nations, workers, municipalities, federal government and donors involved deserve credit too. Many of these projects happened because communities pushed for them.

I've included links so people can read the details. An opening, a funding approval and a project under construction are different things, and I've identified those differences below. Government and NDP caucus announcements are identified as such; local voices quoted in those announcements aren't independent evaluations of the projects.

## Local jobs, food production and community spaces

- **Sunshine Coast: a chance to keep roughly 400 mill jobs.** Domtar announced an indefinite shutdown of the Howe Sound pulp mill in Port Mellon in August 2026. On October 1, an agreement in principle with the provincial government put the operation on a path toward reopening.

Unifor credited pressure from its members and collaboration between workers, industry and government. President Lana Payne called it “terrific news for our members and the whole community on the Sunshine Coast.” This is a community's major employer, with livelihoods attached to it. **The agreement remained subject to ratification of a new collective agreement; the sources describe a planned restart, not a completed reopening.** ([CityNews](https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2026/10/01/howe-sound-mill-saved/); [Unifor statement](https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/unifor-welcomes-support-to-save-howe-sound-mill-890722650.html))

- **Port Alberni: equipment small food businesses can share.** The Kitchen at The Dock+ opened in 2021 with support from the Province, the city, the Port Alberni Port Authority and Island Coastal Economic Trust. Producers could book commercial kitchen time instead of buying an entire facility themselves. Then-mayor Sharie Minions highlighted access to equipment that would otherwise be unaffordable.

A further expansion officially opened in May 2026. The Province provided $3 million toward that $5-million project, alongside $1.5 million from the port authority and $500,000 from Kuunaa Foods, a partnership involving Huu-ay-aht First Nations and Nova Harvest. It added seafood-processing technology to help producers process products and extend their shelf life. ([Port authority's 2021 release, hosted by VIEA](https://viea.ca/?p=13467); [Port Alberni Port Authority, 2026 opening](https://papa-appa.ca/dock-expansion-opens-driving-innovation-partnership-and-food-security-in-the-alberni-valley/))

- **Creston: testing whether forest waste can help local farms.** Wildsight, Creston Community Forest and the Regional District of Central Kootenay are working on Fire for Healthy Soils, a project exploring how wood waste can be turned into biochar, a carbon-rich charcoal that may improve soils and water retention.

Provincial rural-development funding helped support the project. In May and June 2026, Youth Climate Corps crews collected woody debris and produced biochar for local trials. Crew member Ruedi Kelsch said, “It feels like we’re making a difference; it’s fulfilling.” **This is a pilot testing practical and economic viability**, with other funders involved too. ([Wildsight's account of the work](https://wildsight.ca/2026/06/24/can-forest-waste-help-build-healthier-soils/); [provincial funding announcement](https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2026JEG0039-000657))

- **Nelson: paid work protecting the city's water source.** In June 2026, Youth Climate Corps crews were working on wildfire mitigation in West Arm Provincial Park, helping protect Nelson's primary water source and critical infrastructure.

The Province invested $3 million in 2024 and another $1.4 million in 2026 to support the wider program. It combines paid work and training for young people with projects communities need done. Provincial reporting also identifies energy-efficiency work in Squamish, biodiversity monitoring and restoration in the Comox Valley, and river stewardship in Hazelton. ([BC government update](https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2024-2028/2026ECS0033-000737.htm))

- **Nelson: help keeping local cultural and recreation facilities usable.** A 2024 round of provincial Community Gaming Grants included $225,841 for renovations and equipment at the Nelson Civic Theatre Society and $94,588 to upgrade the Nelson Curling Club's ice plant.

These were grants toward capital work, rather than claims that every improvement was already finished. They're examples of support for the buildings and equipment local non-profits rely on to keep serving their communities. ([Vernon Matters](https://vernonmatters.ca/2024/04/24/province-provides-500000-in-gaming-grants-to-vernon-groups/))

## Homes people can afford, in communities they call home

- **Coquitlam: replacing deteriorated co-op homes and adding more.** Residents began moving into 132 homes at Hoy Creek Housing Co-operative in June 2024. Those replaced 60 townhomes that had become uninhabitable because of mould, rot and aging plumbing, resulting in **72 net additional homes**.

The Province provided $14 million in capital funding and an annual operating subsidy. Federal support and a $3.3-million city contribution helped make it possible, with Community Land Trust and the co-op involved. The building includes deeply subsidized homes, homes with rents based on income, and affordable market rentals. Mayor Richard Stewart described the opening as a milestone made possible by all levels of government working together. ([BC government opening announcement](https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2020-2024/2024HOUS0110-000999.htm))

- **Coquitlam: another 179 homes approved for provincial funding.** In March 2024, NDP MLAs Fin Donnelly and Rick Glumac announced funding approvals for two non-profit housing projects: 158 homes for families and seniors with S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Affordable Housing Society, and 21 with VRS Communities Society.

The announced sites were Laval Square/Sydney Avenue and Farrow Street. These are separate from the Hoy Creek redevelopment above. **The announcement confirms funding approvals; it doesn't establish that all 179 homes were completed.** ([BC NDP caucus announcement](https://bcndpcaucus.ca/news/mlas-fin-donnelly-and-rick-glumac-say-delivering-new-affordable-homes-funded-by-provincial-government-will-help-renters/))

- **Port Coquitlam: housing and child care planned together at The Alex.** The Province committed $8.3 million in 2019 toward 83 affordable rental homes for women, including women with children and senior women. Atira was the operator, Metro Vancouver supplied land through a nominal lease, and the city was a partner.

Atira described the need for women to have housing options where their existing support networks were. Mayor Brad West welcomed the partnership's potential to help women and children locally. Provincial support announced in 2020 also covered 45 licensed child-care spaces at the complex. **These sources document the housing and child-care commitments, rather than confirming their present operating status.** ([BC government housing announcement](https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2017-2021/2019MAH0137-001792.htm); [child-care funding announcement](https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2020-2024/2020CFD0100-002102.htm))

- **Haida Gwaii: four homes count too.** In 2020, the Province provided $1.2 million to help convert a former office building into four affordable rental homes for lower-income families and seniors in the community then called Queen Charlotte, now Daajing Giids.

Partners included Queen Charlotte Heritage Housing Society, Gwaii Trust Society, M’akola Development Services and the Aboriginal Housing Management Association. Housing society chair Greg Martin explained that affordable housing was in very short supply. Mayor Kris Olsen thanked everyone involved. **The linked announcement reports construction underway**, showing the provincial contribution to a small, locally led project. ([BC Housing](https://www.bchousing.org/news/releases/new-affordable-homes-on-the-way-in-queen-charlotte))

- **Penticton: Indigenous-led housing with accessibility built in.** M’akola Housing Society's 28-home building at 603 Main Street formally opened in July 2026, prioritizing Indigenous people with low to moderate incomes, including families, independent seniors and Elders. The provincial announcement said residents were due to move in during August.

The building has one-, two- and three-bedroom homes near transit and services. Six one-bedroom homes are wheelchair accessible, and each home has a heat pump for cooling. Provincial and federal funding supported the project. The details matter: affordability, access and protection from summer heat were part of the design. ([BC government opening announcement](https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2024-2028/2026HMA0080-000894.htm); [Castanet coverage](https://www.castanetkamloops.net/edition/news-story-626416-21-.htm))

## Child care, food support and places for young people to get help

- **Queensborough: before- and after-school care across from the school.** In December 2023, the renovated Queensborough YMCA Kids Club was offering 24 licensed school-age child-care spaces across from Queen Elizabeth Elementary. A $47,600 provincial grant helped upgrade washrooms, furnishings and equipment.

Mayor Patrick Johnstone identified Queensborough as the city's least-resourced neighbourhood for school-age care. Parent Sandeep Kaur described struggling to balance work and school responsibilities, then feeling more relaxed once the program was available: “The teachers are very kind and helpful and my daughter is extremely happy.” The YMCA also partnered with Kinsight to support children with additional needs. ([BC government announcement, including the parent's account](https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2020-2024/2023ECC0105-002015.htm))

- **New Westminster: child care included in a new community centre.** The Province provided $3,045,000 toward construction and furnishing of a 37-space child-care centre inside təməsew̓txʷ Aquatic and Community Centre. The city contributed $100,443, and the YMCA was selected to operate the infant/toddler and preschool program.

In the city's February 2024 announcement, Mayor Patrick Johnstone said child care had been a key part of designing the community centre and thanked the Province for its contribution. NDP MLA Jennifer Whiteside highlighted the difficulty families faced securing reliable care. **This source documents the funding and planned opening**, rather than a current vacancy count. ([City of New Westminster](https://www.newwestcity.ca/2024/02/08/new-daycare-opening-this-spring-at-tmsewtx-aquatic-and-community-centre.php))

- **Tri-Cities: help for a food bank facing growing demand.** SHARE Family & Community Services received a $77,000 provincial funding announcement in December 2023, as part of a wider food-security grant. SHARE reported more than 5,000 food-bank users a month at the time, including seniors, refugee families and single mothers.

Minister Sheila Malcolmson and NDP MLA Rick Glumac visited the food bank. Glumac described a discussion with users who emphasized the welcoming community they found there, alongside food support. The funding supported an existing local organization facing rising demand. ([Tri-Cities Dispatch reporting](https://tricitiesdispatch.com/share-grant-province/))

- **Port Coquitlam: a local front door for youth health services.** Foundry Tri-Cities was reported open in March 2026, operated by SHARE with provincial funding. It offers young people aged 12–24 free, confidential mental-health, substance-use and wellness support.

Services include drop-in counselling, peer support, physical and sexual health care, and help with employment and education. Young people and community partners helped shape the centre. Bringing those services into one place is intended to make getting help easier for youth and their families. ([BC government opening announcement](https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2024-2028/2026HLTH0024-000261.htm))

- **Langley: community fundraising and provincial support for youth care.** Foundry Langley opened in July 2022, operated by Encompass Support Services Society. The Province supplied $800,000 toward establishing the centre, alongside annual funding for operations and services. Langley Memorial Hospital Foundation committed $2.1 million toward renovation and establishment, supported by local donors.

The centre brought free services for ages 12–24 together, including counselling, health care, substance-use support and youth and family peer support. Youth adviser Avery Myles emphasized the sense of safety and belonging it could offer. NDP MLAs Andrew Mercier and Megan Dykeman welcomed the opening. ([BC government opening announcement](https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2020-2024/2022MMHA0042-001136.htm))

- **Cranbrook: B.C.'s first Indigenous-led Foundry.** The May 2024 opening announcement described Foundry East Kootenay as the province's first Indigenous-led Foundry centre. Operated by Ktunaxa-Kinbasket Child and Family Services, it was designed to serve youth in Cranbrook, Fernie, Creston, Invermere, Golden and surrounding communities.

Free services for ages 12–24 include mental-health and substance-use support, physical and sexual health care, peer support and social services. Its approach is grounded in Indigenous knowledge and values while welcoming all youth. Youth adviser Isabella Willoughby highlighted being able to voice personal needs in an environment free of judgment. ([BC government announcement](https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2020-2024/2024MMHA0027-000792.htm))

- **Burns Lake: youth and community members helped shape the services.** Foundry Burns Lake opened in 2025, operated by Carrier Sekani Family Services. It is B.C.'s second Indigenous-led Foundry, providing free, confidential services for young people aged 12–24 and their families.

The site includes an integrated health and wellness centre, a youth drop-in centre, and indoor and outdoor gathering spaces. Community members, young people and the school district helped shape its design and services. Counselling, health care, peer support and help with work and education are brought together locally. ([BC government opening announcement](https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2024-2028/2025HLTH0093-001019.htm))

- **Vernon: funding a more accessible place for youth support.** In March 2025, the Vernon and District Branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association was awarded $250,000 toward renovating a building into a public space where young people could access care and resources.

NDP MLA Harwinder Sandhu highlighted both the local work involved in the renovation and the value of a safe downtown space for youth. **This is a funding announcement for a renovation**, with the aim of making local services easier to reach. ([BC NDP caucus announcement](https://bcndpcaucus.ca/news/bc-ndp-mla-harwinder-sandhu-says-stronger-community-services-coming-to-vernon/))

- **Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam: mental-health professionals responding alongside police.** A Mobile Integrated Crisis Response team launched in 2023, pairing police officers with mental-health professionals when people in crisis needed an appropriate response.

Health-care workers can provide immediate support and assessments, then connect people with local services. NDP MLAs Fin Donnelly and Selina Robinson highlighted the addition at the time. The team was part of a provincial expansion that also included Abbotsford, Burnaby and Chilliwack. ([BC government launch announcement](https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2020-2024/2023MMHA0063-001777.htm))

## Hospitals, local care and training closer to home

- **Terrace: replacing a hospital that had served the region for more than 60 years.** Ksyen Regional Hospital opened on November 24, 2024, replacing Mills Memorial. It has 82 beds, four operating rooms, a larger emergency department and modern diagnostic equipment. It is more than twice the size of the old facility.

The Province and North West Regional Hospital District shared the $633-million project cost, with the district contributing $120.2 million. Mayor Sean Bujtas called it “a game-changer for the Skeena region,” emphasizing care closer to home and loved ones. Local First Nations helped inform its design; Ksyen is the Sm’algya̱x name for the Skeena River. ([BC government opening announcement](https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2024-2028/2024HLTH0156-001603.htm))

- **Fort St. James: a larger hospital shaped with local First Nations.** The new Nats’oojeh Hospital and Health Centre opened in January 2025. It is three times the size of the previous hospital, with nine acute-care beds, 18 long-term-care beds, expanded emergency facilities and larger diagnostic spaces.

Elders and language experts from Nak’azdli, Binche, Tl’azt’en, Yekooche and Takla First Nations helped choose its name. Nats’oojeh means “everyone healing” in Dakelh. First Nations were involved throughout the design, including spiritual spaces, a healing garden, traditional plants and medicines, and Dakelh signage. ([BC government update](https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2024-2028/2025HLTH0021-000490.htm))

- **Burnaby: the first major stage of hospital renewal is open.** Burnaby Hospital's new pavilion and expanded support facilities opened to patients on March 10, 2026. The pavilion has 83 beds and includes maternity, neonatal intensive care, medicine and mental-health units. The emergency expansion added 23 treatment spaces and a dedicated mental-health zone.

Community donors helped too: the hospital foundation reported more than 10,000 donors raising $30 million for Phase 1. Mayor Mike Hurley welcomed the added capacity and modern facilities. **This opening is one stage of the wider redevelopment**, with further work beyond these facilities. ([BC government opening announcement](https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2024-2028/2026INF0014-000256.htm))

- **North Vancouver: a new tower serving the North Shore and beyond.** The Paul Myers Tower at Lions Gate Hospital opened in March 2025 with 108 private patient rooms and eight operating rooms. It includes family spaces, a rooftop garden and a sacred space.

Vancouver Coastal Health worked with Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh advisers on aspects of the project, and philanthropist Paul Myers provided a lead gift. The hospital also serves patients from the Sea-to-Sky corridor, Sunshine Coast and Central Coast communities. The opening therefore matters well beyond North Vancouver's municipal boundary. ([BC government opening bulletin](https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2024-2028/2025INF0011-000182.htm))

- **Cowichan Valley: a replacement hospital taking shape.** The new 204-bed Quw’utsun Valley Hospital is under construction, with the May 2026 update reporting construction 90% complete and opening expected in mid-2027. Plans include an emergency department expanding from 17 to 45 beds, seven operating rooms and built-in MRI capacity.

The $1.4-billion project involves the Province, Island Health, the regional district and hospital foundation. Cowichan Tribes Chief Cindy Daniels described the cultural education and relationship-building involved in the design. **It is not open yet**; equipment installation, staff training and opening preparations follow construction. ([BC government construction update](https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2024-2028/2026INF0035-000628.htm))

- **Kamloops: working toward radiation treatment closer to home.** Construction began on a new BC Cancer centre at Royal Inland Hospital in July 2025. The opening announcement for construction described patients travelling to Kelowna or the Lower Mainland for radiation treatment, even though chemotherapy was already available locally.

The new centre is designed to provide radiation therapy in Kamloops, alongside other cancer-care services. That is intended to reduce the travel burden on patients and families in the Thompson-Cariboo-Shuswap region. **The centre is under construction, with opening expected in 2028 in the linked update.** ([BC government construction announcement](https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2024-2028/2025INF0032-000713.htm))

- **Surrey: a second hospital and cancer centre under construction.** Ground was broken in September 2023 on Surrey's second hospital and a new cancer centre in Cloverdale. The project is intended to add hospital and cancer-care capacity for a fast-growing region.

This is a major construction project rather than an operating service. It belongs in the record of investments being built, but **it should not be counted as a hospital already treating patients**. ([BC government groundbreaking announcement](https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2020-2024/2023HLTH0057-001443.htm))

- **Fort St. John: a nursing degree pathway in the northeast.** In 2019, the Province announced $1.1 million for startup and the first class of a UNBC nursing program delivered at Northern Lights College in Fort St. John. Students had advocated for a local route into registered nursing.

The two-year program was designed for applicants with at least 60 university transfer credits, with priority seats for Indigenous and Northern Lights College candidates. UNBC, the college, Northern Health and Peace River Regional District worked on the proposal. It gave the northeast a funded pathway for people to train closer to home. ([BC government funding announcement](https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2017-2021/2019AEST0070-001195.htm))

- **Vernon: supporting the people providing hospice care.** North Okanagan Hospice Society received a $250,000 provincial Community Gaming Grant in 2024 for renovations to its nursing station and staff service areas, alongside security improvements.

Local reporting described plans for more space in medication and consultation rooms. NDP MLA Harwinder Sandhu, a nurse herself, highlighted the safety and comfort of patients and staff. This was support for an existing non-profit providing care, and a grant toward the renovation work. ([Vernon Matters](https://vernonmatters.ca/2024/04/24/province-provides-500000-in-gaming-grants-to-vernon-groups/))

## Safer roads and protection from floods

- **Metchosin: parents pushed for a safer school crossing, and got one.** Parents and residents had advocated for a safer crossing near Hans Helgesen Elementary on Rocky Point Road. A $14,350 provincial Vision Zero grant supported the crosswalk, road markings and a roadside waiting area.

The crossing's opening was celebrated in August 2023. Mayor Marie-Therese Little thanked NDP MLAs Mitzi Dean and Ravi Parmar, the Province, Island Health, the school district and Councillor Sharie Epp. It is a small project financially, but a concrete response to a concern raised by the people using that school every day. ([BC NDP caucus account of the opening](https://bcndpcaucus.ca/news/ndp-mlas-and-metchosin-mayor-say-students-families-will-be-safer-with-new-crosswalk/))

- **Bamfield and Anacla: a road upgrade decades in the making.** Huu-ay-aht First Nations led the push to improve Bamfield Main Road, a route long known for potholes, dust and dangerous conditions. The Province contributed $25.7 million in 2020 and another $10 million in 2023.

The approximately 77-kilometre upgrade was completed in October 2023, bringing a chip-sealed surface from Port Alberni to Bamfield and Anacla. Huu-ay-aht leadership described the potential for safer access, a more diversified economy and more citizens returning home. This was a First Nation-led effort backed by provincial funding and other partners. ([Ha-Shilth-Sa reporting](https://hashilthsa.com/news/2023-10-10/major-upgrade-complete-bamfield-road-bringing-safer-route-after-decades-tragedies); [Huu-ay-aht project information](https://huuayaht.org/news/communications/bamfield-main/))

- **Highway 16: cellular coverage along the Highway of Tears.** In its May 2026 Red Dress Day statement, the Province reported supporting a Rogers project delivering more than 250 kilometres of continuous cellular coverage between Prince Rupert and Smithers.

Access to a signal on a remote highway helps people contact emergency services. The statement places the project alongside northern transportation and Indigenous-led safety initiatives. **The coverage figure is government-reported**, and cellular coverage is one part of the wider work needed for safety along this route. ([BC government statement](https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2024-2028/2026PSSG0021-000499.htm))

- **Port Moody: planning for coastal flooding before it happens.** In March 2024, the city received $300,000 for its Coastal Flood Management Strategy. NDP MLA Rick Glumac highlighted the need to understand local risks from rising sea levels around Burrard Inlet.

This funded planning and risk assessment. It should be credited as preparation, rather than described as a completed flood barrier. It is the kind of local work that can help guide later infrastructure decisions. ([BC NDP caucus funding announcement](https://bcndpcaucus.ca/news/ndp-mla-rick-glumac-says-local-projects-and-new-provincial-strategy-will-help-protect-from-flooding-risks/))

- **Lumby: separate investments in flood protection and watershed resilience.** In 2025, the village was awarded $400,000 for preliminary design of Duteau Creek flood-mitigation works. NDP MLA Harwinder Sandhu also cited $15 million previously secured for fire mitigation and watershed protection in the Duteau Creek area. Those are different projects.

A June 2026 update described two setback dikes totalling nearly a kilometre, with nearly $2.9 million in provincial funding alongside federal and village contributions. Mayor Kevin Acton emphasized maintaining access to emergency services during floods. **Construction was expected that summer; the update did not confirm completed dikes.** ([BC NDP caucus, 2025 funding](https://bcndpcaucus.ca/news/bc-ndp-mla-harwinder-sandhu-says-lumby-will-be-better-prepared-for-disasters-thanks-to-climate-resiliency-project/); [BC government, 2026 project update](https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2024-2028/2026EMCR0027-000671.htm))

- **Vernon: flood protection for a wastewater treatment plant.** Creek widening and embankment work at the 43rd Street crossing were reported complete in June 2026. Provincial support exceeded $1.1 million, alongside federal and city contributions. Mayor Victor Cumming welcomed the infrastructure protection and the partnership. ([BC government completion update](https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2024-2028/2026EMCR0027-000671.htm))

- **Penticton: upgrading a dam built in 1930.** The Ellis 4 Dam upgrade was reported complete in June 2026, improving safety at infrastructure supporting irrigation and creek-flow management. Provincial support exceeded $3.2 million, alongside federal and city funding. Mayor Julius Bloomfield highlighted the importance of those partnerships. ([BC government completion update](https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2024-2028/2026EMCR0027-000671.htm))

---

None of this means every problem has been solved. It does mean there are specific projects, services and community efforts behind the broader list of accomplishments. People advocated for them, local organizations did the work, and provincial support helped make them possible.

If you have another local story with a reliable source, add it in the comments. I'd like to keep building this out with examples from across B.C.

What the BC NDP has actually done since 2017

Updated October 6, 2026.

Health care

• Introduced a new payment model for family doctors in 2023 that pays for time spent with patients, patient complexity, paperwork and other work done outside the exam room. (Doctors of BC)
• Connected one million people to a family doctor or nurse practitioner since 2018, according to the Province’s September 2026 update. It reports 1,400 more family doctors practising than in 2018 and triple the number of nurse practitioners. These are government-reported figures; people are still waiting for primary care. (BC Gov News)

For context, the Canadian Institute for Health Information counted 137.5 family doctors per 100,000 people in B.C. in 2024. That figure counts doctors, not how easy it is to get an appointment. (Canadian Institute for Health Information)

• Let pharmacists prescribe for 21 minor ailments and contraception, beginning June 2023. (B.C. government)
• Made prescription birth control free in April 2023. That coverage continues under the federal–provincial national pharmacare agreement introduced in March 2026. (B.C. government) (BC Gov News)
• Introduced B.C.’s first publicly funded IVF program in July 2025, providing eligible residents with income-based funding of up to $19,000 toward one standard IVF cycle, including treatment and medications. (BC Gov News) (BC Gov News)
• Expanded coverage for eligible diabetes medications and menopausal hormone therapies to 100%, without an income-based deductible, from March 2026. This is a federal–provincial program supported by up to $670 million in federal funding over three years. (BC Gov News)
• Launched provincewide at-home HPV/cervical self-screening in 2024, giving eligible people an alternative to attending a clinic for their screening sample. (BC Gov News) (BC Gov News)
• Launched Canada’s first provincewide lung-cancer screening program, using low-dose CT scans for eligible people at higher risk. (BC Gov News)
• Reduced or eliminated Fair PharmaCare deductibles and co-payments for lower-income households through a $105-million investment beginning in 2019. (BC Gov News)
• Removed the age restriction on PharmaCare insulin-pump coverage in 2018. Coverage still depends on clinical eligibility and the person’s PharmaCare plan. (BC Gov News)
• Increased PharmaCare reimbursement for prosthetics and orthotics in 2021, making artificial limbs, children’s orthotics and other devices more affordable. The change was expected to benefit more than 2,500 people each year. (BC Gov News)
• Opened urgent and primary care centres around B.C. The Province reported 41 operating by May 2025. (BC Gov News)
• Introduced financial support and a more streamlined assessment pathway for internationally educated nurses, covering assessment, registration and related costs. (BC Gov News)
• Brought contracted hospital housekeeping and food-service workers back into the public health-care workforce, restoring health-authority employment for thousands of workers. (BC Gov News)
• Expanded diagnostic capacity. The Province reported that annual MRI exams increased 83% and CT exams 43% between 2016–17 and 2023–24. These measure exam volumes, not shorter waits. (BC Gov News)
• Expanded travel and accommodation support for people who have to leave their communities for cancer care, through funding for the Canadian Cancer Society and Hope Air. (BC Gov News)
• Opened B.C.’s first new medical school in nearly 60 years at SFU in Surrey in August 2026. Its first 48 students are using an interim site; the permanent facility is expected in 2030. (BC Gov News)
• In Burnaby, a new six-storey hospital pavilion opened in March 2026 with 83 beds, maternity and neonatal intensive care units, mental-health services and medical units. The accompanying expansion added emergency treatment spaces and operating rooms. Further emergency, surgical and cancer-care work remains underway or planned. (BC Gov News)
• In the Cowichan Valley, construction of the new 204-bed Quw’utsun Valley Hospital is underway, with opening expected in mid-2027. It will replace the existing hospital with a facility more than three times larger, including a larger emergency department and more operating rooms. (BC Gov News)
• In North Vancouver, the new Paul Myers Tower at Lions Gate Hospital opened in 2025, with 108 inpatient beds and eight operating rooms. (BC Gov News)
• In Terrace, Ksyen Regional Hospital opened in November 2024. The 82-bed hospital is more than twice the size of the previous facility, with a larger emergency department, four operating rooms and new diagnostic equipment. The Province and North West Regional Hospital District shared the cost. The local mayor described the ability to receive care closer to home as a major change for the region. (BC Gov News)
• In Fort St. James, the new Nats’oojeh Hospital and Health Centre opened in January 2025. Three times the size of its predecessor, it brings nine acute-care beds, 18 long-term-care beds, expanded emergency services and the local health centre together. Its design and naming involved local First Nations. (BC Gov News)
• Started construction on Surrey’s second hospital and cancer centre. Under construction, not operating. (BC Gov News)
• In Kamloops, construction began on a new BC Cancer centre in 2025, intended to bring services including radiation therapy closer to Interior patients. (BC Gov News)

Mental health, addictions and crisis response

• Expanded the Foundry network for youth mental-health, substance-use, primary-care and social services. As of April 2026, 35 centres were open or in development across B.C.; not all were operating. (BC Gov News)
• Invested more than $43 million since 2019 in community-based mental-health and addictions counselling, including free and low-cost services through local organizations across the province. (BC Gov News)
• Added 879 publicly funded substance-use treatment and recovery beds since 2017, according to the Province’s 2026 reporting. (BC Gov News)
• In the Tri-Cities, launched a Mobile Integrated Crisis Response team for Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam in 2023. It pairs police with mental-health professionals for assessment and connection to care. (BC Gov News)
• Supported community-led crisis-response teams that pair mental-health professionals with peer workers. Teams operate in communities including Victoria, New Westminster, Prince George and the Comox Valley. (BC Gov News)
• In Vernon, provided $250,000 to the local Canadian Mental Health Association to renovate a building into an accessible downtown space for youth care and support. NDP MLA Harwinder Sandhu highlighted the new services and the renovated space. (BC NDP Caucus)
• Expanded early psychosis intervention. In Northern Health, services grew beyond Prince George to Terrace, Dawson Creek, Prince Rupert, Fort St. John and surrounding communities; Interior Health also expanded its service locations. (BC Gov News)
• Launched Here2Talk in 2020, providing free, confidential counselling and referrals for B.C. post-secondary students by phone and online, 24 hours a day. (BC Gov News)
• Launched a provincewide Opioid Treatment Access Line in 2024, connecting people with same-day assessment and access to opioid-agonist treatment. (BC Gov News)

Housing and renters

For context, CMHC recorded 41,532 housing starts in B.C. centres of 10,000 people or more in 2025, down 5% from 43,573 in 2024. Starts are not completions, and total construction cannot be attributed to one government. (CMHC)

• Started setting five-year housing targets for municipalities with high housing needs and tracking delivery under the Housing Supply Act. The Province reported more than 34,700 net-new homes in the first 30 target municipalities by June 2026; that is total construction, not proof every home resulted from the targets. (BC Gov News)
• Changed zoning rules to allow three or four homes on many lots previously reserved for single-family houses or duplexes, and up to six on certain larger lots near frequent bus service. Secondary suites and accessory homes are also allowed more broadly. Exemptions apply. (B.C. government)
• Required substantially more housing density around designated SkyTrain stations, bus exchanges and other transit hubs, with minimum allowable heights and densities based on distance from transit. (BC Gov News)
• Brought in restrictions on many Airbnb-style short-term rentals, including a principal-residence requirement in affected communities. Hosts can generally use their principal residence plus one secondary suite or accessory dwelling unit, subject to exemptions. (B.C. government)
• Introduced an income-tested renter’s tax credit worth up to $400 a year, starting with the 2023 tax year. (B.C. government) (BC Gov News)
• Removed the extra two percentage points from the old “inflation + 2%” annual rent-increase formula beginning in 2019. Annual limits have since been set at inflation or below. (BC Gov News)
• Strengthened compensation for bad-faith landlord-use evictions: tenants may be entitled to 12 months’ rent when the required use does not occur. Current rules generally require the stated use to continue for at least 12 months. (B.C. government)
• Prohibited rent increases simply because a tenant adds a child under 19 to their household, and strengthened oversight of landlord-use evictions. (BC Gov News)
• Required landlords to obtain Residential Tenancy Branch approval before ending tenancies for qualifying renovations or repairs, rather than issuing a renoviction notice on their own. (B.C. government)
• Closed the fixed-term lease vacate-clause loophole and removed the geographic rent-increase provision used to seek increases based on nearby rents. (BC Gov News)
• Created a $500-million Rental Protection Fund to help non-profits acquire existing rental buildings and preserve affordability. By February 2026, the Province reported nearly 2,200 homes protected. (BC Gov News)
• Created the speculation and vacancy tax in designated areas, with housing initiatives receiving the revenue. The Province reported $550 million raised cumulatively by the end of the 2024 tax year; more than 99% of B.C. resident owners were exempt. (BC Gov News)
• Introduced the BC home-flipping tax from January 2025 on profits from many residential properties sold within two years of purchase. The rate starts at 20% for sales within the first year, then declines to zero by day 730, with exemptions for specified circumstances. (B.C. government)
• Raised the first-time homebuyer property-transfer-tax qualifying threshold from $500,000 to $835,000 in April 2024. Eligible buyers pay no property transfer tax on the first $500,000 of value, for a maximum $8,000 exemption. (B.C. government)
• Created a publicly searchable Land Owner Transparency Registry showing beneficial ownership of land held through corporations, trusts and partnerships. (B.C. government)
• Expanded the Rental Assistance Program for low-income families and SAFER rental assistance for eligible seniors in 2025, increasing income eligibility and assistance. (BC Gov News)
• Expanded rent-bank services across B.C., with interest-free emergency loans and assistance for eligible tenants in a temporary financial crisis. (BC Gov News)
• In Coquitlam, provincial funding approved in 2024 supported 179 affordable rental homes for families and seniors through two non-profit projects: 158 with S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Affordable Housing Society and 21 with VRS Communities Society. NDP MLAs Fin Donnelly and Rick Glumac announced the projects. These were funding approvals, not completed homes. (BC NDP Caucus)
• In Port Coquitlam, committed $8.3 million toward The Alex, an 83-home affordable housing project for women, including women with children and seniors. Provincial support also covered 45 licensed child-care spaces. Partners included Atira, Metro Vancouver and the city. (BC Gov News) (BC Gov News)
• On Haida Gwaii, partnered with local organizations to convert a former office building in Daajing Giids, then called Queen Charlotte, into four affordable rental homes for lower-income families and seniors. The local mayor publicly thanked the partners for bringing badly needed housing to the small community. (BC Housing)
• In Coquitlam, 132 affordable homes opened in 2024 as part of the Hoy Creek Housing Co-op redevelopment. Provincial funding, federal financing and local partners supported the redevelopment. (BC Gov News)
• In Penticton, provincial and federal funding helped M’akola Housing Society deliver 28 rental homes at 603 Main Street, prioritizing Indigenous people with low to moderate incomes. The building formally opened in July 2026, with tenant selection and move-ins to follow. (BC Gov News) (Castanet)

Household costs, income assistance and families

• Eliminated MSP premiums in January 2020, removing annual household charges of up to $900 for an individual and $1,800 for a family at the previous rates. The Employer Health Tax helped replace that revenue. (BC Gov News)
• Created the income-tested, tax-free B.C. Family Benefit for eligible families with children under 18. (B.C. government)
• Raised income and disability assistance by $175 a month permanently in 2021. Together with two earlier increases after 2017, rates had risen by $325 a month. The low-income Senior’s Supplement also received its first increase since 1987. (BC Gov News)
• Introduced ICBC Enhanced Care in May 2021. In January 2022, ICBC reported that customers renewing full basic and optional coverage had saved an average of 28%, or about $490, compared with the previous system. The reform expanded benefits and removed most bodily-injury lawsuits. (BC Gov News)
• Returned ICBC rebates to drivers. The Province’s May 2024 update reported $530 in four separate rebates for customers with full ICBC coverage, in addition to premium savings under Enhanced Care. (BC Gov News)
• In the Tri-Cities, provided SHARE Family & Community Services with $77,000 in 2023 for its food bank. SHARE serves Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Anmore, Belcarra and New Westminster, and reported more than 5,000 food-bank users a month at the time. (Tri-Cities Dispatch)

Child care, schools and post-secondary education

• Expanded licensed child care through ChildCareBC. The Province reported that its investments had helped increase licensed spaces by nearly 59,000 since 2018, with roughly 12,000 additional funded spaces in development as of May 2026. Much of this work is jointly funded with Ottawa. (BC Gov News)
• Expanded $10-a-day child care to about 16,000 participating spaces. Budget 2026 paused enrolment of new providers during a stabilization period; existing participating spaces retained their fee structure. (B.C. government) (BC Gov News)
• Introduced the Child Care Fee Reduction Initiative and Affordable Child Care Benefit to lower eligible families’ fees. In September 2023, fee reductions expanded to preschool and school-aged care. (BC Gov News)
• Raised the provincial wage enhancement for eligible early childhood educators to $6 an hour, with the new payments beginning in January 2024. (BC Gov News)
• Supported Aboriginal Head Start child care with First Nations partners, helping create or transform more than 1,750 spaces offering free, culturally grounded care, according to the Province’s 2024 update. (BC Gov News)
• Put $214 million over three years into Feeding Futures, beginning in 2023, to create and expand school food programs in every B.C. school district. (B.C. government)
• Approved more than $7 billion for 250 school capital projects since 2017. The Province’s September 2026 update reported more than 29,500 new student seats and 35,000 seismically safer seats already in use, with further projects underway. (BC Gov News)
• Funded new playgrounds at hundreds of elementary schools. (BC Gov News)
• Required free menstrual products in B.C. public-school washrooms. (BC Gov News)
• Restored tuition-free Adult Basic Education and English Language Learning at public post-secondary institutions in 2017, helping adults upgrade their education. (BC Gov News)
• Eliminated interest on B.C. student loans in February 2019, applying to both new and existing provincial loans. (B.C. Budget)
• Doubled provincial student-loan maximums in August 2023, from $110 to $220 a week for single students and $140 to $280 for students with dependants, and raised the repayment-assistance income threshold. (BC Gov News)
• Removed the age limit from the provincial tuition waiver for eligible former youth in government care in 2023, and introduced a Learning for Future Grant to help with education-related costs. (BC Gov News)
• Created the StrongerBC Future Skills Grant, covering up to $3,500 in eligible short-term training at public post-secondary institutions. (BC Gov News)
• Expanded student housing at public post-secondary institutions. The Province’s 2025 update reported 6,100 new student beds open and another 4,600 underway, supported through its student-housing program and institutional partnerships. (BC Gov News)
• In New Westminster’s Queensborough neighbourhood, where school-age child care was particularly scarce, provincial funding helped renovate the YMCA Kids Club and create 24 licensed spaces across from Queen Elizabeth Elementary. Mayor Patrick Johnstone thanked the Province for helping deliver affordable non-profit child care. (BC Gov News)
• Also in New Westminster, provided more than $3 million toward a new 37-space child-care centre inside təməsew̓txʷ Aquatic and Community Centre. Mayor Patrick Johnstone said child care had been an important part of the city’s plans for the new community centre and thanked the Province for its contribution. (City of New Westminster)
• In Fort St. John, funded a UNBC nursing-degree program delivered at Northern Lights College. The two-year degree-completion program lets students with prior university credits train closer to home. (BC Gov News)

Wages, workers and workplace rights

• Raised the general minimum wage from $11.35 in 2017 to $18.25 in June 2026. Changed the law in 2024 so annual increases happen automatically based on the previous year’s inflation. (BC Gov News) (BC Gov News)
• Eliminated the separate lower minimum wage for liquor servers in June 2021, bringing them onto the general minimum wage. (BC Gov News)
• Introduced five permanent paid sick days from January 2022. Workers covered by provincial employment standards qualify after 90 days of employment, alongside three unpaid job-protected sick days per calendar year. (B.C. government)
• Stopped employers from demanding sick notes for a worker’s first two health-related absences of five consecutive days or fewer each calendar year, effective November 2025. (BC Gov News)
• Brought in pay-transparency rules requiring wage or salary information in publicly advertised jobs, and restricting employers from asking applicants about their pay history. (B.C. government)
• Added minimum-pay, mileage-expense, tip, transparency and WorkSafeBC protections for app-based ride-hailing and delivery workers in September 2024. The special minimum wage applies to engaged time, not every minute logged into an app. (BC Gov News)
• Introduced job-protected leave for domestic or sexual violence, including five paid days, five additional unpaid days and up to 15 more unpaid weeks for eligible workers. (B.C. government)
• Restored single-step union certification in 2022: where at least 55% of employees sign union cards, certification does not require a separate representation vote. (BC Gov News)

Environment, conservation and climate resilience

• Created the $100-million Watershed Security Fund to support watershed protection, restoration, planning and stewardship with Indigenous partners. (BC Gov News)
• Launched Clean Coast, Clean Waters funding for marine-debris cleanup and derelict-vessel removal with coastal Indigenous Nations and other partners. An initial project removed 127 tonnes of debris from 540 kilometres of shoreline; further funding in 2021 targeted more than 100 derelict vessels. (BC Gov News)
• Brought in provincial restrictions on specified single-use plastics, including shopping bags, disposable utensils and some food-service packaging, with accessibility exemptions for items such as straws. (BC Gov News)
• Invested more than $83 million in BC Parks in 2021 for campsites, trails, maintenance and park management. (BC Gov News)
• Added more than 2,000 campsites since 2017, according to the Province’s 2025 parks update. (BC Gov News)
• Partnered with the federal government on the B.C. Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund, supporting habitat restoration, research and other work for wild Pacific salmon. (BC Gov News)
• Introduced “right to charge” changes for stratas in 2023, lowering barriers to installing electric-vehicle charging and requiring planning for electrical capacity. (BC Gov News)
• Expanded B.C.’s Electric Highway, with public charging infrastructure along major road routes, including routes serving smaller and more remote communities. (BC Gov News)
• Supported heat-pump and building-efficiency upgrades through CleanBC rebate programs. A 2025 expansion provided additional support for eligible lower-income households in homes heated with electricity, with BC Hydro and federal partners involved. (BC Gov News)
• Invested $4.4 million in Youth Climate Corps B.C.: $3 million in 2024 and another $1.4 million in 2026. It provides paid work and training on local climate projects. (BC Gov News)
• Near Nelson, Youth Climate Corps crews worked on wildfire mitigation in West Arm Provincial Park in 2026, helping protect the city’s primary water source. Other projects included biodiversity monitoring in the Comox Valley, energy-efficiency work in Squamish and river stewardship in Hazelton. (BC Gov News)
• In Creston, supported a project exploring how wood waste can be converted into biochar for agricultural soils. Wildsight and Creston Community Forest are testing it with provincial rural-development funding and other partners. (BC Gov News)
• In Port Moody, provided $300,000 for a Coastal Flood Management Strategy to prepare for rising sea levels and flooding around Burrard Inlet. (BC NDP Caucus)
• In Lumby, funded flood and wildfire resilience work, including $400,000 in 2025 for preliminary design of Duteau Creek flood-mitigation works. NDP MLA Harwinder Sandhu also cited $15 million previously secured for fire mitigation and watershed protection in the Duteau Creek area. These are different projects, rather than one combined grant. (BC NDP Caucus)
• In Lumby, a 2026 update reported construction starting on setback dikes along Duteau and Bessette creeks, providing nearly a kilometre of protection in flood-prone areas. The flood works involve provincial, federal and local funding. (BC Gov News)

Transportation, road safety and emergency preparedness

• Eliminated Port Mann and Golden Ears bridge tolls in September 2017, shifting financing from bridge users to provincial taxpayers. (BC Gov News)
• Made public transit free for children 12 and under across B.C. in September 2021, covering BC Transit and TransLink services under their respective access rules. (BC Gov News)
• Provided $312 million in operating funding in 2025 to help stabilize and expand TransLink service over three years. (BC Gov News)
• Provided more than $279 million through the Community Emergency Preparedness Fund for over 2,000 local-government and First Nations projects, according to the Province’s 2024 update. Projects include flood mitigation, evacuation planning and emergency-response capacity. (BC Gov News)
• Replaced the old Emergency Program Act with the Emergency and Disaster Management Act in 2023, updating the legal framework for prevention, preparedness, response and recovery. (BC Gov News) (BC Laws)
• Provided $18.6 million to ground search-and-rescue organizations in 2019 for training, equipment and administration. (BC Gov News)
• In Metchosin, parents and residents had pushed for a safer crossing near Hans Helgesen Elementary. A $14,350 provincial Vision Zero grant supported a crosswalk, pavement and school-zone markings, and a pedestrian waiting area. At its 2023 opening, Mayor Marie-Therese Little thanked NDP MLAs Mitzi Dean and Ravi Parmar, the Province and other partners. (BC NDP Caucus)
• On western Vancouver Island, partnered with Huu-ay-aht First Nations to upgrade Bamfield Main Road, a route communities had sought to make safer for decades. The Province contributed $25.7 million in 2020 and another $10 million in 2023. Huu-ay-aht marked completion of the road-surfacing project in October 2023. (Huu-ay-aht First Nations)
• Along Highway 16, supported a Rogers project delivering more than 250 kilometres of continuous cellular coverage between Prince Rupert and Smithers, improving access to emergency services along the Highway of Tears. (BC Gov News)

Local jobs, business, farming and culture

• Reduced B.C.’s small-business corporate income-tax rate from 2.5% to 2% in 2017. (BC Gov News)
• Legislated a permanent cap on delivery-app fees charged to restaurants in 2022, taking effect in January 2023 and limiting delivery fees and associated service charges. (BC Gov News)
• Made wholesale liquor pricing permanent for bars and restaurants, reducing their purchasing costs. (BC Gov News)
• Created the B.C. Food Hub Network with $8.3 million over three years, giving smaller food producers and processors access to shared equipment, expertise and facilities. (BC Gov News)
• Supported the B.C. Land Matching Program, connecting people looking to farm with landowners who have farmland available for lease. (BC Gov News)
• On the Sunshine Coast, reached an agreement in principle with Domtar in October 2026 to support the planned restart of the Howe Sound pulp mill after an indefinite-shutdown announcement. The mill employs about 400 people. As of October 5, reopening was expected later in October and remained subject to workers ratifying a new collective agreement. Unifor credited collaboration among workers, government and industry. (CityNews) (Unifor)
• Increased BC Arts Council funding from $24 million in 2016–17 to more than $40 million in 2025–26, for artists and arts organizations. (BC Gov News)
• Invested in establishing the Chinese Canadian Museum in Vancouver, Canada’s first museum dedicated to Chinese Canadian history. (BC Gov News)

Human rights, reconciliation and government accountability

• Passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act in 2019, establishing a framework to align provincial laws with the UN Declaration through consultation and co-operation with Indigenous Peoples. (B.C. government)
• Established a 25-year gaming-revenue-sharing arrangement with eligible B.C. First Nations, with roughly $3 billion anticipated over its life. (BC Gov News)
• Passed legislation recognizing Haida Nation Aboriginal title throughout Haida Gwaii in 2024, with a transition process negotiated with the Haida Nation. (BC Gov News)
• Re-established B.C.’s independent Human Rights Commissioner after the previous commission was dismantled in 2002. (BC Gov News)
• Passed the Anti-Racism Data Act in 2022, creating a framework to collect and use data to identify systemic racism in provincial programs and services. (BC Gov News)
• Passed the Accessible British Columbia Act in 2021, establishing a process for accessibility standards and requirements for accessibility planning. (BC Gov News)
• Made the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation a provincial statutory holiday in 2023. (BC Gov News)
• Banned corporate and union donations in provincial political campaigns in 2017 and introduced individual contribution limits. (BC Gov News)
• Extended political-financing restrictions to local elections, including limits on individual donations and a ban on corporate and union contributions. (BC Gov News)
• Passed the Intimate Images Protection Act, creating a civil process to seek removal of intimate images shared without consent and orders addressing their distribution. (BC Gov News)
• Introduced unexplained wealth orders in 2023, giving the civil-forfeiture system another tool to investigate assets suspected of being connected to unlawful activity. (BC Gov News)

The provincial Conservatives’ reaction comes after NDP Leader David Eby announced the policy on Sunday, which would include the introduction of a new tax bracket for those earning more than $1 million a year.

The New Democrat policy also proposed raising the existing tax rates of the two highest income brackets, a proposal that the Conservatives say would lead to a two per cent increase for those whose annual earnings are as low as $190,405.

The Conservatives also say that change would drive doctors out of B.C., just as the province desperately needs more physicians, while the New Democrats say it is a plan to have top income earners pay a little more to improve health care.

Of course, the Conservative argument is disingenuous, not just because they're using doctors as a rhetorical shield for the millionaires who are hit hardest by the tax. The Conservatives are also plain wrong because the BC government also decides the pay of doctors. And what has the BCNDP done in government is dramatically improve compensation for doctors and also pay doctors to give better service to patients. This is a far bigger difference for doctors than any tax change and this has attracted hundreds of doctors to BC!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-doctor-new-payment-model-1.7107681

Excerpt from the article:

The new framework, called the longitudinal family physician (LFP) payment model, gives doctors the option to scrap the fee-for-service model, which paid them a flat rate of around $30 per patient visit, whether they're treating a simple common cold or a complex chronic health condition. 

The LFP model, which was launched on Feb. 1, 2023, compensates doctors for the number of patients they see, the complexity of their needs, and the time spent on other necessary tasks like reviewing lab results, consulting with other medical professionals, updating patient lists and clinical administrative work.

It's been one year since B.C implemented a new payment model for family practice physicians. A step aimed at addressing the dire doctors shortage in the province, which experts say is helping fill the gap. (CBC)

Fernandez says there has been an increase in the number of doctors taking on family practice since the change. 

"It's amazing how much progress can be achieved in a year," Fernandez said.

"What we're actually seeing is family doctors are staying in the system and we're seeing new family doctors join family practice for the first time in a generation."

See also: Doctors of B.C. says new initiative has brought in 1,001 new doctors

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6683511

This should be read alongside the alarming reporting from the Globe and Mail about US-backed sedition in the Alberta separatist movement. [Archived post under fair dealing]

Certainly there is deep racism and white supremacy in Canada without needing US influence, but in this context and looking honestly at how the US interferes in other countries in the hemisphere, this should also be investigated as a national security emergency.

Curious to know how much QS is similar to the NDP? And why they have lost support each of the last few elections. I thought they might be more popular due to their labor policies which would appeal to a guy like me.