Todd Stone, left, and Peter Milobar in the B.C. Legislature last week trying to gain some clarity on when the cancer centre in Kamloops will be built (Image Credit: B.C. Legislature)

By Chad Klassen

CANCER CARE CENTRE

Kamloops MLAs say cancer centre likely closer to 10 years from becoming reality

Jun 23, 2021 | 2:58 PM

KAMLOOPS — The two Kamloops MLAs say they’re starting to feel a little déjà vu when it comes to the cancer care centre promised by the NDP government last fall before the election.

Todd Stone and Peter Milobar say after John Horgan vowed the centre be built within a four-year government mandate, it’s been pushed closer to 10 years.

During question period last week amid the Premier’s Budget Estimates, the B.C. NDP said it’s committed to building the much-needed cancer care centre in Kamloops.

“We wanted to expand [cancer] services, and this is important for the people of Kamloops but also for the people of the entire region, that’s what we propose to do,” noted B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix.

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However, many questions have arisen around when it will be built. Kamloops MLAs Todd Stone and Peter Milobar tried to clarify that very question at the B.C. Legislature last week with little success.

“The premier keeps insisting it’s a four-year plan,” read Milobar in the legislature last week. “In fact, he goes on to say, ‘We have a four-year mandate ahead of us and my committment during the campaign certainly stands just months later.’ But the Minister of Health keeps insisting it’s in a 10-year plan, not a four-year plan.”

The opposition representatives for Kamloops say it’s sending mixed messages.

“They don’t seem to be on the same page, and that should be worrisome to people. We’ve lost almost a year of planning since it was promised already, so there’s no way the premier can live up to his committment. He needs to be honest with the people of Kamloops.”

Last week, Premier John Horgan noted a concept plan for the centre is underway.

“It involves finding out what the requirements are in the region, what are the expectations that can be reasonably met in the time available, and then the business plan flows from that,” noted Horgan.

However, Milobar says in conversations with Interior Health, there have been no mentions of the cancer care centre, leaving him to wonder what is actually happening with the project.

“I think the worry now is that some of the language the premier is using are political weasel words to come in with a scaled-down model versus what the expectation of the promise was — add an extra treatment here and there, but not to the full scope of the project we’re anticipating,” Milobar noted.

The back and forth is starting to give Stone and Milobar flashbacks to a time, in 1991, when the NDP government promised a cancer centre here but never delivered, instead building the one in Kelowna.

Stone is still hopeful, but doesn’t know when it will be built or what it will look like.

“Sadly, it’s Kamloops patients and their loved ones that have to basically continue to drive back and forth to Kelowna for cancer services, which should be provided here in Kamloops,” Stone said. “It’s a city of over 100,000 now, and it’s been promised.”