The New Year is a time when many people refocus on their health, whether it’s starting an exercise program, losing weight, eating healthier, or spending more time out in Nature.

However, for a growing number of healthcare practitioners in British Columbia, the focus at the beginning of this year is not only on our own personal health, but also on the health of our entire healthcare system which is in critical condition and rapidly deteriorating.

Hospital emergency room delays and closures, disruptions in ambulance services, and critical staff shortages throughout the entire province are now making the news headlines every day.

BC’s healthcare system has already lost thousands of healthcare workers – including doctors and upwards of 8,000 nurses – in part due to the ongoing Covid-19 injection mandates currently being challenged in the Supreme Court of BC. The BC government has still been unable to provide any supporting medical or scientific evidence to justify their mandates while an increasing number of top doctors from around the world are raising serious concerns over the “safe and effective” claims of the experimental injections.

The latest assault on BC’s healthcare system was the recent introduction of Bill 36 – the Health Professions and Occupations Act.

Bill 36 replaces the previous Health Professions Act and will negatively impact BC’s healthcare system by intruding on the privacy rights of patients, giving more power and control to politicians, and seeking to censor and silence any opposition from healthcare practitioners.

Desperate to get it passed into law before the year ended, the government rushed the approval of Bill 36 this past November with 2/3 of the legislation remaining undebated.

Among the many draconian measures introduced into Bill 36, it will give the government authority to:

• order a healthcare provider to produce the private clinical records of patients at any given time (Section 20)
• impose arbitrary restrictions and conditions of licensing, including determining who has good character to practice medicine and who does not (Section 49)
• the ability to mandate medical interventions, including vaccinations, as a condition of licensing (Section 49)
• give themselves additional over-reaching powers not clearly defined (Section 435)
• compel a practitioner to comply with government directives through court orders (Section 504)
• the ability to enter a healthcare provider’s premises to search and seize property, including if the government decides the practitioner is not fit to practice (Section 506)

In response to the government hurriedly pushing through Bill 36, despite vocal opposition and concerns raised by health professions and the public, a recall initiative is currently underway to remove Premier David Eby from his Vancouver – Point Grey riding.

As leader of his party and the ruling government, Eby is responsible for allowing these tyrannical measures to be legislated into law without open debate, adequate public consultation, or proper transparency and will therefore be held accountable for his actions.

More details about this nonpartisan recall initiative can be found at the official Bill 36 – Recall David Eby website.

2023 is shaping up to be the year that British Columbians begin the long task of cleaning up the politics from healthcare and making their own health a priority.