Party leaders converge, campaign on Vancouver Island

All three major party leaders were back on the campaign trail Wednesday with as many days left before the B.C. general election.

BC NDP Leader David Eby was once again on the attack against the BC Conservatives.

Speaking in Nanaimo, Eby warned that Conservative Leader John Rustad would bring “American-style, two-tier health care” to B.C. if elected.

“When he was talking to supporters in August, he talked about how he was frustrated that the Canada Health Act stopped him from allowing people to buy health care,” said Eby, referring to an audio recording of Rustad, dated Aug. 12., in which he can be heard calling the Act “silly” and hoping to “get some changes there as well.”

Eby says that would allow some British Columbians to “buy their way to the front of the line” to have their health-care needs prioritized over others.

Rustad, also in Nanaimo on Wednesday, responded to the accusation, claiming that his party backs a “European-style” approach to health care — rather than American.

“We are not cutting health-care spending. [As a] matter of fact, we’re adding $3.8 billion,” said Rustad, referring to the party’s “Patient First” model proposed in its costed platform, which was published Tuesday.

Rustad promised to expand Nanaimo Regional General Hospital. The BC Conservatives’ plan includes adding a new catheterization laboratory — or ‘cath lab’ — which would be the third on Vancouver Island.

Also on the Island Wednesday, BC Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau was in Victoria to announce her party’s plan to bolster food insecurity in the province.

Furstenau says they’ll create agricultural water reserves to guarantee a secure water supply in case of drought or water scarcity.

“How to work together, across all of the users of water, to create that security is esential right now. We cannot wait until we are in severe drought and crisis to be making these decisions.”

She also promised to increase funding for local food storage and distribution centres and encourage public institutions to source a proportion of their food locally.

Furstenau added that its platform proved the B.C. Conservatives were not “a serious party.”

“You have to ask yourself, ‘Who do I want representing me, and who do I want making these decisions in this province?’ And after the platform released yesterday, I would think that cannot be the B.C. Conservative Party,” said Furstenau.

She had earlier said Rustad was relying on “magical thinking” by predicting 5.4 per cent growth, “without any plan on how to achieve this.”

BC Stats, the government’s statistical office, says B.C. had real GDP growth of 1.6 per cent in 2023.

—With files from The Canadian Press