Maternity Matters rally, October 26. (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By James Peters

TWO & OUT

PETERS: It seems simple, but working together will be the key to improving life in Kamloops next year

Dec 19, 2025 | 12:30 PM

COUNCIL COMMITTEE MEETINGS are usually duller than a butter knife. They’re drier than Clark Griswold’s turkey.

This week’s Economic Health Select Committee meeting, though, featured a spark of an idea that could actually light a fire of positive change in our community.

Speaking to the council committee, Acacia Pangilinan from the Kamloops chamber was lamenting the feeling that her organization’s lobbying efforts on health care were not bearing fruit.

Certainly, the councillors on the committee can commiserate.

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For years and years, well before this term even began, council has been entreating Interior Health, the Ministry of Health — anyone who will listen, really — that the state of health care in Kamloops is deteriorating.

And council is not alone. The TNRD, our MLAs, not to mention thousands of individual residents have been expressing frustration with our healthcare system — largely, to no avail.

At Thursday’s committee meeting, Councillor Dale Bass wondered aloud if all these efforts are too isolated from each other, carried out in silos. Bass suggested a more coordinated effort across the entire community might be more effective.

It’s an idea worth exploring.

CEOs and middle managers in a health authority or provincial ministry can dismiss the arguments of a couple of councillors pretty easily.

And opposition MLAs — they’re always complaining about something, right?

When the larger community of ordinary citizens comes together, though, that’s pretty hard to ignore.

This week, IH announced it has made some progress addressing the maternity care crisis in Kamloops.

Would the health authority have stepped up its recruitment efforts to this level without the pressure applied by the Maternity Matters rallies outside of the hospital? Probably not.

Working together as a community is a principle that should spread to other areas of need in our region — not just health care.

There’s good reason to be skeptical of each other these days. We seem to live in a world of apathy, frustration, trolling — and most of all, division.

It may seem naive or even Pollyanna in that context, but it’s no less true — if residents of a community come together to work toward a common goal, we can actually make a difference.

A good reminder for 2026.

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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.