Vaughn Palmer: New Democrats and Liberals Strike a Common Front in a Troubled Time in BC

Opinion: “There is a lot of commitment and a lot to be proud of,” said Adrian Dix. “But we just have to increase those vaccination levels.”

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VICTORIA – Health Minister Adrian Dix Commends Opposition BC Liberals for Supporting Campaign to Promote Vaccination at Northern Health, Where Rising COVID-19 Case Count Is Overwhelming Hospitals and Workers alike Of the health.

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“The North is being overwhelmed by COVID-19 and overwhelmed by the fact that we are not meeting our vaccination targets,” Dix told reporters at a news conference noting that Northern Health has the per cent case count. highest capita and lowest vaccination rate. from any region of the province.

The Health Minister was quick to acknowledge opposition leader and Prince George MLA Shirley Bond for their leadership in a cross-party effort to reverse trends. He also cited the efforts of liberal MLAs Dan Davies and Mike Bernier, whose districts are in the Northeast, and New Democrats Nathan Cullen and Jennifer Rice, who represent the Northwest.

“There is a lot of commitment and a lot to be proud of,” said Dix. “But we just have to increase those vaccination levels.”

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The next day, Cullen and Davies made a joint appearance on CBC’s Daybreak North to discuss the extent of the problem.

“Our hospitals are absolutely being stretched to the limit,” Davies, Peace River North’s liberal MLA, told host Carolina de Ryk. “I congratulate our health professionals, our nurses who are working, some of whom work 40 consecutive shifts. They can’t hold that. Our system cannot sustain that. And it’s 90 percent of the unvaccinated people who are filling our intensive care units right now. “

Cullen, Stikine’s NDP MLA, voiced a version “very similar” to Davies’.

“We are sending people out of Smithers right now because we are full of COVID,” Cullen said. “People who have very serious injuries and need support. We will send them from the north. “

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He echoed Davies about the need to increase vaccination rates in the north, which is 12-15 percentage points below the provincial average for the first and second doses.

Cullen relied on the recent announcement of $ 6.5 million in provincial funding to hire and retain more healthcare workers, especially nurses. Davies welcomed the money, but the Liberals also called for an independent audit of healthcare resources in the Northeast.

When asked about the challenge of converting the vaccine redoubts, Cullen said they were not “a monolithic group.”

“There are some who are absolutely ideologically opposed to vaccines. Very difficult to reach, ”he said. “There are other people who doubt. They have read things on the Internet that have given them concerns. There are some who just think it’s not their responsibility and those are some of the saddest conversations I’ve ever had, where they think it’s for someone else to do it. “

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Davies and his liberal colleague Bernier have cited “distrust of the government” as a factor in a part of the province that is ideologically and geographically distant from mainstream BC.

Dix, for his part, convened an electronic briefing with the northern MLAs on Wednesday to acknowledge challenges and discuss solutions. For the Liberals, the opposition leader Bond presided, who, as of this week, is also the health critic of his party. Bond appointed herself to the role after a run-in with the previous critic, Renee Merrifield, the Kelowna-Mission MLA rookie and also a candidate for the party’s leadership.

The inexperienced Merrifield was an odd choice for such an important role in the midst of a pandemic. She, too, turned out to be controversial, with eyewitness comments suggesting that liberals wavered on masks, mandatory vaccinations for healthcare workers, and other aspects of managing the pandemic.

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The controversy came to a head last week with a social media post from Jas Johal, the former BC Liberal MLA-turned-CKNW radio host, calling for Merrifield’s removal as a health critic.

“He has failed in that role,” Johal wrote on his Twitter account. “We need an effective opposition and his performance does not meet the expectations of the public and his colleagues.”

Johal must have known what she talked about about the attitude of Merrifield’s liberal colleagues because the next day she came out as a health critic. Members of law Michael Lee and Ellis Ross, also candidates for leadership, also lost their roles as policy critics.

“All three leadership candidates have agreed to put aside their critical portfolio roles to focus on the leadership race,” declared the Liberals in a press release designed to provide face-saving coverage of Merrifield.

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Bond, who had taken on the role of critic of health herself, wasted no time in clarifying what the party’s position was on vaccination. When news broke last Thursday that anti-vaccination protesters had invaded three schools in Salmon Arm, Bond made a comment long before NDP Education Minister Jennifer Whiteside.

“I read this with disbelief and some anger,” he wrote on his Twitter account. “First there were protests that blocked hospitals and now people entering schools. There are ways to express your views, but not this one … Enough! Students and staff deserve better! “

Bond’s ire was topped off by that of Attorney General Mike Farnworth, the bad cop from the NDP to the good cop from Dix.

“Covidiot doesn’t even begin to describe how inappropriate the action of those coup jobs is,” Farnworth stated, adding yet another insult to BC’s political vernacular.

More importantly, Bond and Farnworth confirmed that, at least with vaccines, the New Democrats and Liberals had achieved a common front in a troubled age.

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