A Healthcare System That Works For You
In 2024 and 2025, Mission Memorial closed 22 times, forcing families to drive sick kids twenty minutes to Abbotsford Regional, which has been running at 128 per cent capacity, its hallways lined with patients waiting for care it cannot deliver. Folks in Harrison and Kent are already used to half-hour drives to Mission or Hope just to see a doctor. Across our riding, thousands of families have no family doctor at all, splitting pills and skipping doses of prescriptions they cannot afford to fill.
When the Medicare Act passed in 1966, the federal government agreed to fund half the system alongside the provinces, because you need to know that when your kid is sick, or your parent needs a doctor, they'll actually be seen. Today the Canada Health Transfer funds just 21.5 per cent of all public healthcare spending. Politicians in Ottawa have been cutting quietly, blaming the provinces, and leaving working Canadians to pay the price; we are going to make them answer for it.
“Don't ever let them tell you
we can't afford healthcare.”
—Tommy Douglas
Hold Ottawa Accountable For Healthcare Funding
The original intent of Medicare was that costs would be shared 50-50 between the federal and provincial governments. Today the Canada Health Transfer makes up a fifth of all healthcare spending, and our healthcare system is in shambles because of it. In our riding, the consequences are impossible to ignore. Abbotsford Regional has been operating at 128 per cent capacity, well above the safe threshold of 90 per cent, as patients line hallways waiting for care. Mission Memorial has been forced to reduce its hours and close its doors repeatedly in 2025 and 2026, leaving Mission seniors and families with sick kids driving 15 to 20 minutes to an already overwhelmed hospital. For residents of Harrison, Kent, Harrison Mills, Deroche, Dewdney, Durieu, and Hatzic, the drive to Fraser Canyon in Hope is far longer, and far worse between 6:00 PM and 8:00 AM when Mission Memorial has been closed. Average ER wait times across B.C. exceeded four hours in 2025, but in Abbotsford, they exceeded six and a half. The federal government has been withdrawing from healthcare funding for decades while telling Canadians it's a provincial responsibility, but when the crisis is this widespread, this consistent, and this severe across every province, the cause is clear. It's time Ottawa answered for this: New Democrats are demanding the federal government restore the funding it once promised to the provinces and to Canadians, enforce the Canada Health Act against provinces that allow privatization to creep in, and ensure our communities get the healthcare funding they're owed. For residents of Mission—Matsqui, that means a fully funded and fully staffed Abbotsford Regional, an end to unplanned closures at Mission Memorial, and real investment in rural and remote healthcare access for every community in our riding.
Double Medical And Nursing School Seats
Our healthcare system is understaffed because we haven't trained enough doctors and nurses to meet our growing population's needs. The Canadian Medical Association found in 2025 that 5.9 million adults do not have a family doctor, nurse practitioner or primary care team they see regularly, with projections estimating Canada will have a shortfall of 44,000 physicians by 2028. New Democrats will double the number of medical school and nursing school seats across the country, streamline recognition of foreign credentials so internationally trained doctors and nurses can practice here without years of unnecessary delay, and implement pan-Canadian licensure. We’re also pushing to mandate safe nurse-to-patient ratios, phase out private nursing agencies that drain billions from the public system, and offer paid preceptorships so nursing students aren't working unpaid in hospitals and long-term care homes.
Expand Team-Based Primary Care
Roughly a quarter of Canadians, including 23 per cent of British Columbians, do not have access to a family doctor. Team-based primary care models, in which family physicians work alongside nurse practitioners, pharmacists, social workers, and other health professionals, have been shown in multiple studies to reduce emergency room visits by 20 per cent to 40 per cent, improve management of chronic conditions, and deliver better preventive care. However, 70 per cent of doctors in Canada are fee-for-service, with 96 per cent of physicians receiving some portion of their pay from the FFS model. This results in physicians being incentivized to see as many patients as possible, not to create the deeper care relationships that improve healthcare outcomes. That’s why New Democrats are demanding every family has access to primary care by calling for the implementation of team-based care across the country, where family doctors and nurse practitioners work alongside other health professionals to deliver comprehensive care in communities like ours. Nobody in Mission—Matsqui should be relying on an already-overwhelmed emergency room for primary care.
Universal Coverage from Head to Toe
We’re fighting for a healthcare system that covers you completely; that means universal dental care, prescription drugs, vision, hearing, and mental health care all brought under the public system. Right now, Canadians are skipping dentist appointments, rationing medication, and avoiding counselling because they can't afford it. While the rollout of the Canadian Dental Care Plan has made significant progress, some dentists are reporting that many pre-authorization requests for complex or expensive dental work are being rejected or delayed by the plan’s administrator, while tens of thousands of Canadians have been caught up in approval errors, leading to temporary revocations or incorrect co-pay assignments. The federal pharmacare plan still only provides coverage for select diabetes medications, menopausal hormone therapy, and contraceptives. While the average wait time for publicly funded psychological services in B.C. exceeds six months, private therapy costs average $130 to $220 per session for a registered clinical counsellor and $200 to $350 for a registered psychologist, according to the B.C. Medical Association. This system is allowing untreated conditions to become emergencies. Full universal coverage will reduce costs for everyone, eliminate profits for private insurance companies, and ensure that cost is never a barrier to seeing a doctor, a dentist, a counsellor, or filling a prescription.
Take The Profit Motive Out Of Long-Term Care
In B.C., between 2016 and 2025, the number of seniors waiting to be admitted to long-term care rose from 2,381 to 7,212; however, in 2026, the province was forced to cancel plans for five long-term care facilities in Delta, Abbotsford, Chilliwack, and Kelowna, two facilities which would’ve served the Fraser Valley. Although the Minister of Infrastructure said the projects themselves had only been rescheduled, no new timeline was given. Yet here in B.C., 25 per cent to 32 per cent of all long-term care beds across the province are operated in for-profit care facilities, even though the Office of the Seniors Advocate of B.C.’s 2023 report found that not-for-profit facilities delivered 93,000 more care hours than they’d been funded for, while for-profit facilities delivered 500,000 fewer. Seniors are being denied in-home care while being forced to age in increasingly privatized long-term care homes that provide inadequate care, all because the province alone cannot afford to ensure our seniors age with dignity, the federal government must step up, and that’s why we’re demanding long-term care be brought into the public and non-profit system, and demanding the removal of private for-profit businesses from the sector. And why we’re demanding proper staffing ratios and health and safety protections for workers, and permanent wage increases and benefits for long-term care workers. Caring for our seniors is among the most essential work in our society. It should not be a place for profit.
Address The Toxic Drug Crisis
From 2016 to 2025, the toxic drug crisis has killed over 50,000 Canadians. These are preventable deaths, and it's time to respond with a healthcare approach grounded in evidence, compassion, and human rights rather than punishment and stigma. In January of 2023, the province rolled out its decriminalization pilot program, which concluded in January of 2026: 2023 was the peak of overdose deaths at 2,593 deaths, falling to 2,253 the following year, and reaching the lowest in five years at 1,825 in 2025. Although politicians have attempted to use this public health crisis as a pawn, the evidence is clear: those enrolled in B.C.’s safe supply program are far less likely to die from an overdose, which is essential in ensuring those struggling with addiction stay alive long enough to get into treatment. And the shortage of detox and treatment beds across the province is by far the largest contributing factor to overdose deaths across the province: it’s been estimated that between 100,000 and 125,000 people across the province live with an opioid use disorder, yet there were just 3,785 treatment beds across the province as of 2026. While wait times for these beds remain fairly low, between 8 and 30 days for most patients, many of these beds are not actually treatment beds at all: according to the Investigative Journalism Foundation, as of 2024, a third of these treatment beds did not provide treatment services whatsoever but instead only offered shelter. Alongside a lack of total treatment beds is a lack of housing for the homeless: although there were an estimated 23,550 homeless people across the province in 2025, there were just 4,158 permanent shelter beds, with many scattered between first, second, and third stage housing. Without permanent, adequate, first-stage housing, and a housing-first policy, these shelters will continue to fail to meet the needs of people experiencing homelessness, thereby failing to help them get into treatment or enter recovery. This crisis began when pharmaceutical corporations flooded the market with high addiction potential drugs, and was exacerbated when the Conservative government in 2012 fired 1,100 border security guards, including federal port inspectors. With those inspectors gone, thousands of litres of fentanyl could flow through our ports, further poisoning our communities. Meanwhile, government after government, Liberal and Conservative alike, has failed miserably to stand up to the scale of this crisis. We’re tired of politicians using the toxic drug crisis as a political pawn of the establishment: rather than stand up to this crisis, they’re instead retreating from a policy that has reduced toxic drug deaths for three consecutive years. That’s why we’re calling for the federal government to rehire all 1,100 border security guards, to prevent the flow of illegal drugs through our ports. That is why we’re calling on the federal government to sue the pharmaceutical corporations that caused and have profited off of this crisis. That is why we’re calling for the creation and expansion of life-saving harm reduction services including drug checking, supervised consumption, safer supply programs, and widely available naloxone. This includes the creation of a nationwide network of Crisis Response, Community-Led services, mental health crisis teams that keep people safe and free up law enforcement to focus on violent crime. And finally, that is why we’re calling for a housing-first policy that will ensure no one is forced to live on our streets, and everyone has the chance to get into recovery.