Vet seats welcome news

So the Post-Secondary Ministers’ announcement was musical.

“I’m really pleased. I’m just so pleased, particularly for the students who, you know, got funded last year,” says Lara Beckett, Board Chair for the Regional District of Fraser Fort George and strong advocate for a veterinarian school in Northern BC. “And then we’re in limbo not knowing if they were going to get that support, you know, to continue. So I just really commend Minister Robinson and Alexis for this announcement. It’s really good news.”

The Regional Districts of Fraser Fort George and Bulkley Nechako have been strong advocates of a veterinarian school established at the University of Northern BC and a vet technician program at the College of New Caledonia.

“We might be training 40 students per year, but we know through demographics, 100 vets approximately a year are retiring in B.C. So, you know, we’re not even coming close to meeting the replacement need. So, you know, we need to train more students. And we know that if we train in B.C., those students will stay in B.C. And if we train here in the north, we know some of those students are going to stay in the north.”

Beckett says the regional districts in the North are doing their homework with relation to making a case for a school here. “So we’ve got some information coming in probably in the next month just looking at the population, sort of the animal base versus the number of vets in our area, sort of the economics of that picture. And so, you know, we’ll we’ll have some more firm numbers in about a month.”

However, if a vet school and tech program are coming to the region, it will take plenty of time to get here.

by Cheryl Jahn

Vet seats welcome news

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