British Columbia is facing big social and environmental challenges ahead of Budget 2023: sky high rents, health care under enormous strain, a toxic drugs crisis, climate disruption and the need to build and rebuild crucial but eroded public services Are people moving out of British Columbia?
More than 55,000 people moved out of B.C. to other provinces between 2021 and 2022, with affordability being a driving factor for many. Data from Statistics Canada shows that nearly 55,000 people moved out of the province in 2021, with more than half of them moving to Alberta. Source: google.comsearch?q=current+health+issues
What are some issues in Vancouver?
Top 10 issues for residents in Metro Vancouver:
Affordable housing: 34%
Transportation/public transit: 20%
Crime/public safety: 19%
Homelessness: 16%
Transparency/fiscal responsibility: 13%
Environment/climate change: 13%
Planning/infrastructure: 12%
Overdevelopment/densification: 11%
Does British Columbia have a homeless problem?
Most B.C. residents say homelessness a major problem, governments doing bad job addressing it. Nearly three-quarters of British Columbians say homelessness is a major problem in the province right now, but significantly fewer say it’s a major problem in their neighbourhoods.
Most B.C. residents say homelessness a major problem, governments doing bad job addressing it.
Nearly three-quarters of British Columbians say homelessness is a major problem in the province right now, but significantly fewer say it’s a major problem in their neighbourhoods. These are some of the findings of a recent poll by Research Co., conducted against the backdrop of efforts to dismantle a tent city on Hastings Street in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside that the city’s fire chief says is a significant public safety risk. The online survey of a representative sample of 800 B.C. residents found substantial frustration with all levels of government when it comes to addressing homelessness in the province. Almost four-in-five survey respondents (79 per cent) said they felt homelessness had increased in B.C. over the last three years, and more than three-in-five (63 per cent) said it was on the rise in their municipality. Similarly, 73 per cent said homelessness is a major problem for the province and 52 per cent said it’s a major problem for their municipality. A significantly smaller portion of respondents – 27 per cent – said homelessness is a major problem in their immediate neighbourhood, though only about one-third (32 per cent) said it was not a problem at all.
Given these views, it’s perhaps not surprising that 55 per cent of B.C. residents said their local government had done either a “bad” (32 per cent) or “very bad” (23 per cent) job of coming up with solutions to the problem. Source: bc.ctvnews.ca
Province helps better connect
patients to primary-care providers
On July 1, 2023, with new family doctors and nurse practitioners ready to accept patients, the Province expanded the Health Connect Registry, hosted by HealthLink BC, from select communities to all communities throughout B.C. People will be connected to a primary-care provider based on their health needs, the provider’s ability to take on those needs, and the region.
The Health Connect Registry is the patient-facing side of the Province’s action plan to strengthen primary care and better connect people to primary-care providers, including:
a new family doctor compensation model to attract and retain family doctors that has nearly 3,300 signups;
a new-to-practice incentive program that has 156 new family doctors registered;
a new provincial rostering registry for individual family doctors and nurse practitioners to manage their patient panel information and identify when they can accept new patients; a new clinic and provider registry for medical directors and staff to provide information about their clinics, so government can better support practitioner needs;
working directly with Doctors of BC, and Nurses and Nurse Practitioners of BC to support family doctors and nurse practitioners with new registries; adding more co-ordinators who will help connect family doctors and nurse practitioners with patients locally; creating more incentives for clinics, family doctors and nurse practitioners to join, so that more people can connect with them; a broader health human resources strategy to recruit and retain more health professionals to ensure people in B.C. get the health services they need and are cared for by a healthy workforce; and providing more support for new team-based primary care in family practice clinics, urgent and primary-care centres, community health centres, nurse practitioner clinics and First Nations primary-care clinics.
Through the registries, B.C. will have a comprehensive list of who is looking for a primary-care provider and who already has one, as well as which providers and clinics can accept new patients. Starting Nov. 30, 2023, and continuing quarterly, the Province will report on progress to add more family doctors and nurse practitioners, and on connecting more patients from the Health Connect Registry to a primary-care provider.
Source: news.gov.bc.ca/releases
Saturday, April 25, 2026
