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By Jessie Sunner, Minister of Post Secondary Education and Future Skills

Sound Off

SOUND OFF: More nurse practitioner training seats coming to B.C.

Sep 17, 2025 | 10:30 AM

BRITISH COLUMBIANS WANT ACCESS to high-quality and reliable health care close to home, and they want to be seen by medical professionals who know their personal history. Across B.C., we’ve been connecting patients to nurse practitioners, who are essential, knowledgeable members of our healthcare workforce that help people access the care they need in their communities, when and where they need it.

I know how much people in my own life and constituents I’ve talked to value their relationships with nurse practitioners in their communities.

That’s why last week, our government announced that we’re expanding nurse practitioner training in three universities across the province. We’re adding 65 new training seats so that more people can study to become nurse practitioners throughout B.C. and live and work in the communities they love.

We’re adding 30 seats at the University of British Columbia, 20 seats at the University of Northern British Columbia, and 15 seats at the University of Victoria. At UBC, the nurse practitioner program will operate out of the Surrey campus in a newly renovated space, making it more accessible to people in Surrey, the Fraser Valley, and other parts of the Lower Mainland.

This builds on previous work our government has done to expand nurse practitioner seats. In May of 2023, 15 new nurse practitioner training seats opened up at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops.

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This means that, combined with these new seats, our province has 165 training seats for people to study to become nurse practitioners in the Lower Mainland, Northern B.C., Vancouver Island and the southern Interior.

Nurse practitioners are able to act as both primary-care and acute-care providers and adding these training seats can help address gaps in underserved populations, such as rural, remote and Indigenous communities, and help make sure people are getting the care they need closer to home.

Our healthcare system is full of incredibly dedicated and essential staff, from doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, maintenance staff, food-service workers, X-ray and ultrasound technicians, administrators and more, and they all have a role to play in our network of care.

We know there is more work to be done, and we will continue to prioritize investments that help get British Columbians the reliable, accessible health care they need.

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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.