Then-Premier John Horgan promises Kamloops a cancer care centre, October 2020 (Image Credit: CFJC Today / James Peters)

By James Peters

Two and Out

PETERS: On cancer centre, NDP stringing Kamloops along like Lucy with the football

Mar 31, 2023 | 10:54 AM

AT THIS POINT, the NDP government dangling a cancer care centre over Kamloops has become like a demeaning joke.

It’s the driver hitting the gas just as the passenger is about to open the door. It’s removing the chair just as your buddy sits down. It’s Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown.

To recap, the party promised Kamloops a cancer care centre in the 1990s before giving it to Kelowna.

Since then, a cancer diagnosis for a Kamloops resident has meant becoming very familiar with Highway 97 or the Okanagan Connector.

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The NDP ruled the roost in the ’90s and the B.C. Liberals governed for 16 years after that, and we didn’t hear much of anything about cancer care in Kamloops.

Then, in the run-up to the 2020 pandemic election, Premier John Horgan stopped at TRU to promise the cancer care centre would be built in the coming four year term, if B.C. re-elected his New Democrats.

There were some local folks who stood alongside Horgan then — and who don’t feel very good about their participation today.

B.C. did re-elect the NDP. In fact, we gave them a super-majority. Now it’s time to pay the piper.

The promise didn’t help the party here in Kamloops, mind you, where voters once again chose two B.C. Liberal MLAs.

But a promise is a promise, and the equivocation from the NDP government on that promise has us thinking we have been fooled not once, but twice now.

This week, the Thompson Regional Hospital Board was asked to remove a budget line item for a cancer care centre business case because the project hasn’t been approved for that stage.

Whether it’s Interior Health or the Ministry of Health that’s the hold-up, something needs to give.

For those who live with cancer and are trying desperately to rid themselves of it, a cancer care centre alongside our tertiary care hospital is still a very desperate and practical need.

For the rest of us who are fortunate enough to be cancer-free, this is a symbol — a shining example of a government that makes promises with no apparent plan to follow through.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.