Peter Milobar (l) and Jackie Tegart (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Aaron Schulze

THRONE SPEECH REACTION

Local MLAs disappointed in lack of details on economy and healthcare in throne speech

Apr 13, 2021 | 10:44 AM

KAMLOOPS — In its throne speech, the B.C. government looked beyond the COVID-19 pandemic to other priorities including help for the economy, improved health care and taking on inequality.

The speech from Lt.-Gov. Janet Austin in the legislature on behalf of the government left B.C. Liberal MLAs Peter Milobar (Kamloops-North Thompson) and Jackie Tegart (Fraser-Nicola) wanting more specifics.

Milobar said the NDP-led B.C. government is rehashing ideas from previous throne speeches, such as expanding $10-a-day daycare and building thousands of rental homes, that haven’t been fulfilled in four years.

“This is an incumbent government; one would think they would have their feet under them by now,” Milobar told CFJC Today. “We need to see some meaningful plan in terms of making sure the economy can recover, and the gaps we’re seeing in health care and inclusion actually has some meaningful dollars behind them. Mental health and addictions and the opioid crisis; what type of dollars are going to be there to help those most vulnerable in our society? The language in the throne speech would indicate there’s not going to be a very significant uptake in spend to help those various areas out.”

Locally, Milobar hopes to see investment in school infrastructure as Kamloops’ enrollment projections are expected to keep rising. Provincially, he said the government must retain and recruit more healthcare professionals and go through with introducing anti-racism legislation.

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Elsewhere, Tegart was surprised by how little the speech mentioned women.

“The only time in the speech when women were mentioned is when women seemed more likely to lose a job or feel forced out of the workforce,” Tegart said. “Okay, so what’s the plan around supporting women?”

The B.C. government will unveil its 2021-22 budget on April 20.

with files from Michael Reeve/Q-101 Merritt