Mixed emotions from Northern community leaders on 2023 Provincial Budget

PRINCE GEORGE – With one billion dollars earmarked for new investments in mental health and addictions supports, British Columbia is set to become a provincial leader in Canada when it comes to public spending on Mental Health. But the spending announcement from Victoria received a less than welcome reception from many community leaders in the North. Liberal MLA for Prince George, and Provincial Health Critic Shirley Bond, called the new budget a lip service to healthcare by a government whose primary revenue source has become the BC Taxpayer’s pocket.

Another cause for concern,vague and uncertain language about improvements to rural policing, and the allocation of pennies on the dollar for police forces by comparison to the billions of dollars spent elsewhere. Prince George MLA Mike Morris says the budget is an extreme disappointment, but was something to be expected. His major concern, a lack of investments that will ultimately grow the BC Economy, and signs that budget funds will end up being spent on administrative salaries, rather than going to much need infrastructure investments.

Despite the criticism on the bottom line from the local opposition, there was one announcement in the 2023 budget that was heralded as a bi-parisian victory for human rights: provincial funding for birth control & contraceptive prescriptions. The first ever announcement of it’s kind the country, and one that garnered a major sigh of relief from long-time women’s rights advocate Dawn Hemingway, who said it felt like the culmination of a battle over reproductive rights she’s been fighting since the 1970s.