Sparks fly as Opposition MLAs hammer B.C. government over ER closures

The growing number of emergency department closures in B.C. took over the legislature on Thursday.

Emotions boiled over during question period Thursday in the B.C. legislature.

“When you’re trying to access an emergency room and it’s closed, that’s inconvenient,” said Surrey–White Rock MLA Trevor Halford, to desk-slapping and cheers in the chamber.

A steady stream of B.C. Consevatives demanded answers to the essentially same question for their region: When will the ER closures end?

“Elkford’s ER department in my riding has been closed for over two years, two years,” said an exasperated Pete Davis, the B.C. Conservative MLA for Kootenay-Rockies.

No fewer than 20 MLAs rose to flag emergency room closures in their part of the province over the past two years, including Tony Luck, the Fraser Nicola MLA.

“Twenty-six days this past year – to the premier, when will hospital closures stop in British Columbia?” queried Luck.

Donegal Wilson, the Conservative MLA for Boundary-Similkameen, said her local hospital ER has been closed more than 1,000 times in the past couple years.

“The emergency room in Keremeos has been closed evenings and weekends for 1,213 days – why does this premier think that this is acceptable?” she demanded.

Health Minister Josie Osborne rose each time in response to the questions, acknowledging the problem and pledging more help is coming.

“I will stand up for health-care workers each and every day,” she told the MLAs in the chamber.

B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad said the dramatic QP was intended to highlight the depth and breadth of the problem.

“We could have gone on with our entire caucus. Twenty speakers is a record. I don’t think any opposition party has ever put up that many speakers in a question period before,” he said following the contentious session Thursday morning.

“We have a global shortage of health-care workers – and that’s why it’s incumbent on us to do everything possible to train and recruit new doctors to our province,” said Osborne during the QP, responding to the concerns about the ongoing closures.

The B.C. Conservatives say there have been 1,407 ER closures across hospitals in B.C. over the past two years, including in Delta last weekend. Most of the closures have been in rural communities like Merritt, where Mayor Mike Goetz expressed frustration Thursday.

“We’ve been closed for the last three nights out of the last four days, and the concerning one for us was Sunday night when we had a structure fire here in town, and one of our firefighters needed medical assistance,” said Goetz.

The Health Ministry told CTV News on Thursday that it doesn’t have comprehensive records for ER closures over the past two years, but its data indicates there were 793 ER closures between March 2024 and February 2025.