Editor:
Congratulations to Sechelt council and the lobby group, Protect Public Health Care – Sunshine Coast, and their fellow travellers. You’ve managed to drive hundreds of well-paying health care jobs and millions of dollars of economic activity out of Sechelt. We will now have to drive further to visit seniors in residential care, though people in Gibsons will certainly benefit. Sechelt residents employed at the new facility will add an hour’s commute to their day. But at least you’ve remained ideologically pure and taken a firm stand against free enterprise and the market economy. You’ve shown your support for extending our government monopoly model for hospitalized care into the residential care sector; never mind that the model performs so poorly when compared to other countries. You’ve sent a strong and clear, if misguided, signal – and your stand was responsible for blocking and delaying the badly needed expansion of seniors’ residential care housing on the Coast. It is ironic that the jobs you’ve driven out pay good, competitive market wages with benefits and pension, with the nursing and care staff paid similarly to the public sector.
Sechelt’s mayor has since weighed in, reportedly stating that “VCH will make the decision on where and how health care is provided on the Sunshine Coast.” However, in the face of a signed contract and a VCH approved location in Sechelt, he and the council stonewalled, delayed and obstructed the development application at every turn. They acted beyond their mandate as a municipal government and took every opportunity to make it impossible to fulfil the terms of the VCH contract. That’s stunningly hypocritical.
Sechelt needs a wake-up call. It’s time for council to proactively and collaboratively advance the remaining seniors’ housing developments that have been dying on the vine before they leave town, too.
Keith Maxwell, Sechelt
