[LabComm] NDP launches petition to stop further emergency room cuts

[BC NDP Newswire]

NDP launches petition to stop further emergency room cuts

PLUS: Liberals stack Land Commission with patronage appointments

Gordon Campbell and the BC Liberals don't seem to be listening to concerns about health care, so doctors and community leaders are teaming up with Carole James and the NDP to demand that the Campbell Liberals admit there is a growing crisis in our hospital emergency rooms.
 
All this week, NDP MLAs, including <strong>Jenny Kwan, David Cubberley, Mike Farnworth, Katrine Conroy, and Michael Sather</strong>, have hammered Gordon Campbell and the Liberals with the facts about the growing health care crisis:
 <ul>
<li>In 2001, Campbell promised to build 5000 new long-term care beds by 2006. He broke that promise.
 </li>
<li>Since 2001, Campbell has closed 5 hospitals, 54 long-term care facilities and 1300 acute care beds  -- that's one in five hospital beds.
 </li>
<li>Since 2003, doctors have been warning that BC Liberal cuts would lead to dangerous overcrowding in our hospital emergency rooms.
 </li>
<li>Now, overcrowding is so bad people are dying as they wait for emergency care in our hospitals.</ul>
Despite this, the Campbell Liberals refuse to listen to the concerns of doctors and ordinary people and to date has refused to admit that their bed cuts have created a crisis in our health care.
 
Instead, the Campbell Liberals announced on Monday that they would cut ER services at Vancouver's Mount Saint Joseph Hospital by 23%.
 
Doctors, who warn that this will make the ER at Mount Saint Joseph unsafe and make the ER crisis at other Vancouver hospitals even worse, joined NDP MLAs <strong>Jenny Kwan, David Cubberley and David Chudnovsky</strong> on Thursday to demanding Gordon Campbell reverse his decision on the cuts.
 
On Friday, doctors from Mount Saint Joseph joined volunteers and MLAs as the NDP launched a petition drive aimed at giving ordinary people a chance to challenge Campbell to rescind the planned cuts.
 
If you'd like to sign the petition, <a href="http://stopercuts.bc.ndp.ca/">click here to get involved.</a>
<br />
 
<h2>Gordon Campbell appoints insiders to ALC; Liberals back down after questions from NDP</h2>

There seems to be a direct link between appointment to the Agricultural Land Commission and ties to the BC Liberal Party.
 
Throughout the week, Carole James and the NDP have questioned a series of Liberal patronage appointments to the ALC -- an important body that determines if scarce agricultural land can be turned over to developers.
 
The Campbell Liberals announced their most recent appointments on April 23. Since then, NDP MLAs <strong>Bruce Ralston, Maurine Karagianis, Rob Fleming and Mike Farnwworth</strong> have discovered that the Liberals seem to using the ALC to reward friends and insiders with patronage appointments:
 
Recent appointees include:
 <ul>
<li>John Tomlinson -- a former BC Liberal Party riding president who donated more than $12,000 to the BC Liberal Party, worked on the BC Liberal election campaign in 2001 and even starred as a "businessman" in a 2005 Liberal TV ad.
 </li>
<li>Bill Jones -- a BC Liberal Party donor who just 2 days after his appointment attended a public meeting in Richmond and advocated removing the Garden City lands from the Agricultural Land Reserve.
 </li>
<li>John Kendrew -- who resigned from the ALC in 2004 just long enough to advocate for the removal of his own property from the Reserve. The government granted his wish on July 5, 2005, then reappointed him to the ALC on November 1, 2005.</li></ul>
 Furthermore, many these appointments were approved by BC Liberal Party friend Kathryn Dawson --  a former aide to Stockwell Day who was personally recruited by Gordon Campbell to become the director of operations for the BC Liberal caucus. It appears to be a case of a Liberal insider appointing other Liberal insiders.
 
Following questions from the NDP, the BC Liberals backed down and rescinded the appointment of Bill Jones. Carole James and the NDP, along with the major media, are continuing to seek answers about the patronage appointment and how they might affect the future of land usage in our province.
<br />
 
<h2>Carole James meets community leaders in Fort St John, Revelstoke</h2>
 
This week, NDP Leader Carole James  was in British Columbia's Northeast and the Southern Interior meeting with municipal representatives.
 
On Thursday, James spent the day in Fort St. John, where she  delivered a keynote address to the North Central Municipal Association .
   
On Friday, James departed for the Okanagan, where she addressed the Okanagan Mainline Municipal Association in Revelstoke.  James also spoke to the Revelstoke Chamber of Commerce and visited the Stepping Stones child care centre, where she heard concerns about Gordon Campbell's failure to advocate for day care funding from the new Conservative government of Stephen Harper.

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