Globe editorial: Side effects include a lack of justice: B.C.’s overreach on health care regulation Law that takes effect April 1 grants too much power to government and too little protection to medical professionals

…the B.C. government has overreached. And in eliminating proper due process while boasting about increased accountability, it has made a mockery of justice.

www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/edit...

BC first to end medicine as a self-regulating profession.

BC is also the first province to have it's medical association (Doctors of BC) receive 2/3 of its operating funding not from its physician members, but direct from government.

Coincidence?

bsky.app/profile/mark...

Thanks for covering BC's HPOA @alannasmith.bsky.social @andreawoo.bsky.social … here's a bit of background explaining why Doctors of BC's opposition to this has been so tepid (despite huge anger among front-line docs).

So in summary.

BC govt now effectively controls DoBC (against DoBC's own charter) and the CPSBC.

They've got unprecedented powers to stifle opposition, free speech and further threaten the livelihoods of HCWs.

All this with no oversight.

HCWs are leaving.

Patients lose.

I don't even want to get into the changes that the BC NDP is making to FOI rules (Bill 9)

Already very strict, it's going to be even more difficult for anyone to obtain information on how the health system is operating.

The NDP is doing everything it can to hide its failures.

I've written elsewhere about the govt's growing influence in DoBC and its negative impact on physician autonomy (and patient's interests).

And how the NDP govt has been successful at using DoBC to further its own policy interests.

You can find that here: markroseman.com/docs/

You wouldn't see this in any other province.

Can you imagine AMA in Alberta allowing the AB govt to put an end to physicians being a self-regulated profession?

Or staying silent about it?

Not here.

BC NDP has been very effective at taking control and protecting its interests.

Collaboration isn't necessarily bad, but you have to ask if it's working in doctors' interests or the government's.

Frankly, DoBC has been a very weak advocate for physicians.

The money is a very big reason why.

The BC NDP pretty much bought DoBC.

Now they own the CPSBC too.

And bringing it back to the HPOA… do you think an organization getting 2/3 of its operating funding from govt is going to risk speaking out… biting the hand that feeds, as it were? Nope.

For the last decade, DoBC has taken a "collaborative" stance with the BC NDP.

Familiar with the expression "whoever has the gold makes the rules?"

It applies here. DoBC's influence (and oversight) of those programs is minimal compared with the control exerted by MOH.

Ask the DoBC board or representative assembly how much influence they have on the JCCs.

These government funds are earmarked for the Physician Health Program and Joint Collaborative Committees (extra non-MSP programs for things like family docs or specialists that are operated "jointly" between DoBC and MOH). In other words, MOH pays for them.

If you look at DoBC's financial statements, you'll see that—unlike other provincial medical associations and contrary to the terms of the BC Societies Act—an overwhelming portion of its operating funding comes directly from government (around 2/3).

A "member-funded society" has a specific legal definition (in the BC Societies Act).

One of the stipulations is that no more than 10% of its revenue can come from public donations (non-members or government funding). That helps those societies act in their members' interests.

One thing missing in the (few) media stories about HPOA is why there was so little opposition from Doctors of BC and why it was so meek and ineffective.

After all, doesn't DoBC represent doctors' interests? It's a "member-funded society" created to do exactly that. 🧵

The media and the public certainly aren't entitled to answers.

Govt and health authorities can basically ignore FOI requests or demands from the privacy commissioner to comply.

And new legislation will make it even easier for them to ignore those pesky meddling citizens.

Tracking Hospital Overdoses Isn’t Easy as It Seems: Dr. Bonnie Henry | The Tyee BC’s top doctor explains why health authorities may not be collecting this data. A Tyee Q&A.

This article explains that BC govt and its health authorities do whatever the fuck they want and aren't answerable to anyone. Data that would look bad? Poof - gone!

Tracking Hospital Overdoses Isn't Easy as It Seems: Dr. Bonnie Henry via @thetyee.ca thetyee.ca/News/2026/03...

When the public and media is deliberately obstructed from obtaining information on govt operations—without any consequences—that's a serious problem for a democracy.

How Many People Are Overdosing at BC’s Hospitals? | The Tyee That data is key to knowing where supervised consumption sites are needed. The government won’t release it.

Reporters in Canada spend a huge amount of time fighting to access information like this.

I sit across from @michellegamage.bsky.social in our newsroom and can attest this was a months-long battle! thetyee.ca/News/2026/02...

How Many People Are Overdosing at BC’s Hospitals? | The Tyee That data is key to knowing where supervised consumption sites are needed. The government won’t release it.

The real story here is the failure of BC's health authorities to respond to valid FOI requests that may be politically damaging. We've seen this story many times before. Should not be acceptable.

How Many People Are Overdosing at BC's Hospitals? via @thetyee.ca thetyee.ca/News/2026/02...

Billionaires who lobbied Trump to halt Canadian bridge praise EZ-Bribe App DETROIT, MI - Billionaire Matthew Moroun, whose family recently lobbied the Trump administration to publicly threaten the Gordie Howe International Bridge which competes with their interests, has prai...

Billionaires who lobbied Trump to halt Canadian bridge praise EZ-Bribe App

Andrew, thank you for tackling this. I was an early critic of LFP and what you said was bang on. It's one goal (accomplished) was to present 1000 more FPs from quitting. Otherwise, a huge missed opportunity to get this right.

BC residents have shrinking access to family doctors, despite more doctors - CCPA Primary care access is declining in BC. With a new provincial budget on the way, how has spending on doctors affected it?

Primary care access is declining in BC. With a new provincial budget on the way, how has spending on a new physician payment model affected it?

#bcpoli #cdnpoli

www.policyalternatives.ca/news-researc...

Say you need to save a few billions from a $40billion budget.

The bureaucrat layer up top costs a few billion.

Who do you task with finding savings?

The bureaucrat layer.

Think they’ll start by looking at themselves or someone else?

Right.

Human nature.

But bad leadership.

Why the AWS outage exposed the risks of depending on a single company | CBC News A few days after Amazon's cloud services company AWS had an outage that plunged millions of popular websites and apps into the dark, questions still linger about why some companies get so big in the f...

And this wouldn't even be all about Trump. When AWS went down a few months ago, Canada felt that. It seems like that particular outage didn't affect our government, but it affected the UK government. Letting a handful of US companies control the entire internet is stupid, even without a mad king.

Danielle Smith’s $30-Million AHS Firing Spree | The Tyee That’s the hit to Albertans for severance payments to top health officials since 2019, finds a Tyee analysis.

"Executive cited the recent example of a young couple who trained in Edmonton as surgeons — one as a pediatric neurosurgeon, an extremely rare speciality, and the other as a colorectal cancer surgeon. They now live and work in Kingston"

You don't say!

Isn’t it the Govt’s job to know how many private clinics are operating in the province? Also, if Osborne is so opposed, why isn’t more being done to quell the expansion of these private clinics? Osborne talks out of both sides of her face…

Each BC health authority can decide on its own what performance metrics to track—or none at all.

And what it publishes—if anything.

Where are the province-wide metrics and comparisons across health authorities?

This is a no-brainer… if accountability were taken seriously.

Target is 85% of MRI's done within acceptable timeframe.

Current performance is 18% and falling fast.

No plan to reach benchmark. Just token "investments."

When are the people responsible for delivering a functioning health system held accountable?

(Never, obviously)

How seriously do BC's health authorities take accountability?

Check out Northern Health's "reports" page (northernhealth.ca/about-us/acc...)

- last service plan to 2022-2023
- last CMHO report 2016
- last "review" 2017
- last "survey" 2018
- last "consultation" 2018