Tag Archives: British Columbia

Among parents that have difficulty finding child care, 59 per cent of British Columbians say affordability is a barrier to child care. Photo submitted by Baneet Braich

Barriers to child care affordability and accessibility in B.C. remain third highest in Canada.

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Thea Lopez immigrated to Surrey, B.C. in 2017 with her husband, one-year-old daughter, and one child on the way.  Starting their new careers in Canada as nurses, child care was a top priority. In 2017, Lopez’s children were number 360 plus on the child care waitlist. Three years later her son is still number 27 and her daughter- who is now in kindergarten- is number 26.

“I called more than 30 facilities in 2017 and there were no spaces, even if I have the resources to put my kids in, there is no space,” she says. “As much as I want to work and be part of the system, I cannot.” 

Lopez’s struggles led her to advocate for the $10aDay Child Care initiative in B.C. which pushes for families to pay $200 a month for child care with participating daycares. 

Since November 2018, the B.C. government approved over 50 prototype sites where families pay $200 a month for child care. A recent Early Learning and Child Care agreement with the federal government has extended the prototype sites into 2021. These sites are testing funding and operations towards a universal child care system, according to the government of B.C. website. 

Sharon Gregson, spokesperson $10aDay Child Care, says she is hopeful that COVID-19 will instill urgency and result in long-term changes to child care.“Covid-19 has highlighted both provincially and federally how crucial child care is for women’s participation in the workforce,” says Gregson. When more parents can access affordable child care, it has an impact on labour force participation, she added. 

 The median cost of full-time, full-day child care in Vancouver in 2018 was nearly $1,400 a month for infants, $1,407 for toddlers, and $1,000 for a preschoolers, according to a report by Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. For Lopez, the cheapest daycare she found was $900 a month but with an extensive waiting list. 

Alison Merton, director of the Early Years Program at Collingwood Neighbourhood House says that despite a 25 per cent increase in requests at her day care this year, she recognizes that accessibility and affordability remain a concern for families. 

This graph shows differences in finding child care due to affordability by province in 2019. For data source by Statistics Canada click here.

“Accessibility is huge,” she says. “Having those spaces available for families, we just don’t have enough especially for infants and toddlers. We just don’t.”

Merton says that part of the issue is recruitment and retention in the field. “We just don’t have the staff coming into the field. It’s just very hard to piece together, she says.

Although the government added $2 an hour to early childhood educator (ECE) wages in April 2020, Merton says, “We need to do better.”  Many ECE staff leave to work in education for higher pay and better benefits, she says.

Merton says the child care system can be improved by having funding allocated to child care programs instead of the subsidy for families.  “If you are funding the programs you have a certain amount of control of quality being delivered to the program,” she says.  

Among the people who have difficulty finding child care, 66.4 per cent of B.C. parents say it’s due to difficulty finding available child care in their communities.For data source by Statistics Canada click here.

While municipalities have different needs to best foster child care demands, Gregson says she remains absolutely hopeful with B.C.’s child care future. 

“B.C. is one of the few provinces that has a provincial plan ready to be implemented,” says Gregson. B.C.’s cities are in a much better position now to know where they need childcare, how much, and their issues with recruitment and childcare educators, she adds. 

British Columbia’s investment into childcare continues in 2020 with $1.4 billion for Childcare BC. This brings the total investment in child care programs to $2 billion over three years, according to the government of B.C. website. 

 

Liquified Natural Gas Shows Concern Between B.C. Government and Treaty 8 First Nations

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The B.C. Ministry of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation has expressed concern about how to approach Liquefied Natural Gas Development on Treaty 8 First Nations Land.

“Resource use with Treaty 8 and the provincial government has been, let’s call it strained,” says Scott Fraser, who is the MLA for Alberni-Pacific Rim and Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation spokesperson for the B.C. NDP Caucus Team.

Documents obtained through B.C.’s Freedom of Information Law reveal a Human Health Risk Assessment was completed in November 2014 that covered six Treaty 8 First Nations communities: Blueberry River, Doig River, Halfway River, McLeod Lake, Saulteau, and West Moberly First Nations.

The assessment provides two similar options suggested by the Ministry of Health about how to present the finding s to the Treaty 8 communities. The first suggestion involves the Ministry of Health hiring a consultant to hold community meetings explaining the results and fielding questions. While the second approach involves a cross-ministry approach, lead by the Ministry of Health or another Ministry where consultants would be hired to lead a public information campaign to provide information on the assessment’s findings.



(*) What is the Documentation? – The information is the two options proposed by the B.C. Ministry of Health about how to present the findings of the Human Health Risk Assessment.
(*) From which department did these pages come? – These pages came from the B.C. Ministry of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation
(*) Why was this information helpful? The information was helpful because it shows the concern the B.C. Ministry of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation and the B.C. Ministry of Health have when it comes to presenting information to the Treaty 8 First Nations.

“We just want to be at the table at the beginning, not towards the end,” explains Rodney Nelson, a lecturer at Carleton University and CEO of Global Governance Group, a consulting firm that specializes in working with Indigenous governments. “If you’re thinking about any problems just bring them on board,” explains Nelson because “some of the First Nations out there are very interested in projects like this” and being able to be partners with the government and various companies.

The assessment concluded that the risks of chemicals of potential concern (COPC) “were not predicted to result in adverse health effects in people living or visiting the study area.”
The assessment also determined that even though some areas exceeded exposure limits for certain COPC’s, it is not expected to create adverse health effects due to the rarity of it happening combined with the safety measures put into the assessment.



(*) What is the information? – The information is the findings from the Human Health Assessment. The HHRA claims that the potential for adverse human health effects is low due to potential exposure from Chemicals of Potential Concern (COPC)
(*) From which department did these pages come? – These pages came from the B.C. Ministry of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation
(*) Why was this information helpful? – This information is helpful because it provides the information that the B.C. government is using as they pursue Liquefied Natural Gas developments on Treaty 8 First Nations Land.



(*) What is the information? – The information is the findings from the Human Health Assessment. The HHRA claims that Chemicals of Potential Concern risks in the air were determined to not result in adverse health effects for people on Treaty 8 First Nations Land
(*) From which department did these pages come? – These pages came from the B.C. Ministry of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation
(*) Why was this information helpful? – This information is helpful because it provides the information that the B.C. government is using as they pursue Liquefied Natural Gas developments on Treaty 8 First Nations Land.

In recent years Liquefied Natural Gas development has been promoted by Premier Christy Clark as a new way to create billions of dollars in economic development within the province. The process involves fracking, where drilling takes place into the ground and a mixture of water, sand, and chemicals is injected in order to crack the rocks and allow the natural gas to flow to the surface.

Despite the assessment’s findings regarding human health, there are still questions for some that are left unanswered. One of the main concerns about liquefied natural gas is the potential environmental effect on the Treaty 8 First Nations land. Scott Fraser remembers vividly the last time he visited the Treaty 8 First Nations, flying late one night where “there’s flaring all over the place. The landscape is being changed in huge ways. Including the wildlife corridors, potential destruction of water supplies. It potentially impacts the way of life that has existed for Treaty 8 people for millennia.”

Rodney Nelson believes the process that the B.C. government is using plays a big role in how they view the environment. The process they’re using was developed in Europe, and in Europe it’s not a concern anymore. They don’t have vast amounts of wilderness to worry about. Here we do,” he explains, “a lot of people are still living off the land or supplementing off it.

In response to reports and assessments made by the provincial government, Treaty 8 First Nations have been conducting there own research about liquefied and its effects. The Treaty 8 Tribal Association among other First Nations groups have hired Dr. Gilles Wendling, a hydrogeologist who is doing work on the potential risk of aquifers and water supplies because of these practices.

“The Treaty 8 First Nations have a treaty,” says Scott Fraser, “this is a treaty nation. The government is pursuing this as though they don’t have a treaty and as though they don’t exist.”

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B.C. government looks to save millions in prescription drug costs

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A patient holds an Enbrel auto-injector syringe. Enbrel (Etanercept) is one of several biologic drugs used to treat rheumatoid arthritis. (Creative Commons licence provided courtesy of Flickr user mnicolem)

Faced with soaring prescription costs, the B.C. government is looking for alternatives to expensive biologic drugs, not long ago hailed as revolutionary.

Used to treat debilitating joint disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, biologics were “game-changers” when they were first invented 15 to 20 years ago, said Dr. Jason Kur, president of the B.C. Society of Rheumatologists.

Biologics are genetically-engineered proteins, developed using living cells. As such, they are far more complex — and costly — than drugs manufactured through a conventional chemical process.

According to documents obtained through an access to information request, B.C. PharmaCare spent a record $82.5 million in 2014 to treat the three most common forms of inflammatory arthritis using biologics. That’s more than 12 times the amount the province spent on these medications when they were first introduced in 2002.

Excerpt from an information note provided to B.C. Health Minister Terry Lake
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With an annual cost of around $20,000 per patient, one drug alone — Infliximab — accounted for $51 million in spending in 2012-13: PharmaCare’s single largest drug expenditure that fiscal year.

Documents also show the number of patients receiving PharmaCare coverage for a biologic to treat one of the three most common forms of inflammatory arthritis grew more than tenfold, from 547 patients in 2002 to over 6,400 patients in 2014.

Cheryl Koehn understands the importance of biologics first-hand.

A former Olympic-calibre volleyball player, she was just 27 when she developed rheumatoid arthritis 27 years ago.

“Before these drugs, we basically were left at home to become disabled and die,” said Koehn, who now works as founding president of Arthritis Consumer Experts, a national organization offering science-based information to Canadians living with arthritis.

But PharmaCare administrators hope subsequent entry biologics (SEBs) will offer not only comparable patient results, but also huge savings to the province.

Biologics cannot be perfectly replicated, but SEBs — or “biosimilars” — have been shown to offer similar relief of patients’ symptoms. In other words, they are designed to be comparable, but not identical to the original biologic on which they are based. Importantly, they are also developed to be significantly less expensive.

Since Feb. 19, 2016, a biosimilar of Infliximab — Inflectra — has been available through PharmaCare, priced about a third lower than the original Infliximab. Inflectra is also listed in provincial drug coverage plans in Ontario and Quebec, and will be available in Manitoba in April.

Excerpt from B.C. PharmaCare’s February 2016 newsletter
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Kur said he and his colleagues are “cautiously optimistic” about the arrival of biosimilars in B.C.

“We’re all quite aware these are some of the biggest costs driving drug expenditures,” he said, adding there are some lingering concerns.

Many of the original biologics have more than one or two decades’ worth of data to support their safety and efficacy, he said. “That’s not something that should be taken lightly.”

Still, Kur supports the B.C. government’s decision to have Inflectra prescribed to patients who have never before taken Infliximab. Long-term studies conducted in Europe strongly suggest the drug is just as safe and effective as the original biologic.

Koehn, too, agrees that SEBs offer an exciting opportunity, especially if the provincial government re-invests savings to expand coverage to other biologics and SEBs.

She also hopes the government might relax some of the eligibility criteria, which require patients to take less effective medication before being considered for a biologic.

Only biologics and SEBs, said Koehn, can restore up to 50, 70 or even 90 per cent of a patient’s health.

“It’s like saying to a cancer patient, ‘We’ll get rid of 20 per cent of your tumour and tough luck with the rest,’” said Koehn. “You don’t say that to cancer patients, so why should you say that to people with auto-immune arthritis?”

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Pharmaceutical watchdog continues tenuous relationship with B.C. government

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Jim Wright has had March 31, 2016 circled on his calendar for a long time. That’s the date that Therapeutics Initiative (TI), an independent watchdog that evaluates prescription drugs, will see its contract with the B.C. government expire, according to records released under the B.C. freedom-of-information law.

Though Wright, TI’s co-managing director, says that a new contract has been agreed on, he won’t be completely comfortable until he sees it in writing.

Therapeutics Initiative is run out of the University of British Columbia and is a globally recognized institution that keeps pharmaceutical companies and government officials in line. Wright has been with the company since 1994, and in that time has overseen a sometimes tumultuous relationship with the Liberal government that has been in place since 2001.

In the aforementioned records released by the B.C. Ministry of Health, the government calls research done by the TI and other pharmaceutical research groups “ an inherent and important contributor…to operate a sustainable, evidence-informed, efficiently-managed, drug program that improves the health of British Columbians.”

The government has not always felt that way. In 2007, the government set up a task force to evaluate TI. The nine-member group – five of whom were associated with the drug industry – recommended   shutting down TI.

“We were doing extremely well and were sort of considered one of the few really effective groups in the world up to 2007,” recalls Wright. “So it was a big surprise, a big shock. Because you’re doing really well, and you’re recognized internationally and then they set up a task force. So everything has gone down hill since that time. But we haven’t been gotten rid of completely. We’ve just been struggling since that time.”

Therapeutics Initiative survived the task force’s advice, but was suspended for a period in 2012. When the contract was renewed later in 2013, the government grant had been cut almost in half, moving from a million dollars a year to the current amount of $550,000.

That’s the amount that has been agreed upon in principle for the next contract. “We tried to negotiate a higher amount, but it wasn’t successful,” says Wright. “Every time something like this comes up we have some uncertainty. It’s not a situation where we say ‘Oh yeah, for sure it’ll be renewed.’”

The government’s treatment of TI hasn’t gone unnoticed by the opposition party. “They don’t have continual, stable year to year funding. So they have to continually, each year, make the case for projects they want to undertake,” says B.C NDP health critic Judy Darcy. “When we really believe that we need an ongoing, independent drug watchdog, and that their funding ought to be increased in order to play that role.”

In a process called ‘budget estimates,’ each time a new budget is adopted by a respective ministry, the spokesperson for the opposition gets to question the minister. “I get to question the minister for anywhere from four to six days,” Darcy says, excitedly. “And believe me, the TI is an issue that we have pursued over and over and over again, and I will be again.”

The B.C. Ministry of Health did not respond to a request for comment.

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