Image Credit: Flickr / Province of B.C.

By Michael Reeve

UBCM WRAP

Kamloops councillors return hoping UBCM convention will bear future fruit

Sep 29, 2025 | 4:45 PM

KAMLOOPS — Last week, a delegation made up of City of Kamloops councillors and several members of the senior management team travelled to Victoria for the annual convention of the Union of B.C. Municipalities. The week-long event involves councillors from across the province voting on a series of resolutions purposed by communities throughout B.C., including some from the Kamloops council. It also presents local leaders an opportunity to speak directly with provincial cabinet members.

The UBCM convention is usually highlighted by a number of big ticket announcements from the sitting government, but with financial pressures front and centre, there was a different feel this year in Victoria.

“That was the undertone, and council knowing that going in, we weren’t going in asking for big dollars like we sometimes do,” said Councillor Mike O’Reilly. “It’s more what legislative and policy changes can we advocate for and try to help advance that will help our city function better.”

The Kamloops delegation met with more than a dozen ministries, with O’Reilly focusing in on health care infrastructure, where the city didn’t get a formal meeting with Health Minister Josie Osborne.

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“Around the Ministry of Infrastructure and its staff, laying out what our hospital requirements are and what the regional hospital district’s needs are,” said O’Reilly. “And where we will be going for and where we will be putting our money forward — which is essentially looking out for more of a Thompson Regional Hospital District. What our experts are saying on the ground, what the doctors are saying they need, instead of Interior Health telling us what we need.”

Councillor Dale Bass, however, was able to secure some informal face time with Minister Osborne.

“We had a lovely chat about sobering centre, about involuntary care, about IH — and she listened. I’ve known [Osborne] for a few years now and she listened. More importantly, her staff who were with her listened, because they are the ones who get things done,” said Bass.

The lone big announcement that the NDP did make was the move to open involuntary care beds, something Bass is open to bringing to Kamloops.

“As long as they do it, it would be nice to have it here. We have a wing out at [Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre] that’s empty. It could easily be transformed into something like that, but just do it because once they start doing it, they will keep doing it, I hope. And we will get on the list, eventually,” said Bass.

Bass said she hopes the general public will learn more about the process to alleviate some fears as it did for her.

O’Reilly noted that the seeds planted this year at UBCM may not flower for many years.

“For me to come home from this trip and say, ‘This is the result from this trip,’ that would be very difficult to do. But what I can say is people aren’t balking at the 500 housing units the province is building at the corner of Fifth (Avenue) and Columbia Street, and that was about a three-year process to get there,” said O’Reilly.