B.C. Election: Long-term care wait times need to be addressed, seniors group says

Addressing the acute shortage of long-term care beds and the challenges of providing new ones are at the top of a list of priorities that a seniors advocacy group is putting forth to the political parties ahead of the Oct. 24 B.C. provincial election.

“We are a long ways back and down from what we need,” said Doug Jones, president of the Canadian Association of Retired Person’s Vancouver Island chapter, noting that more than 7,000 seniors are waiting for placement with average wait times nearing 10 months.

The decision earlier this year by the NDP government to delay construction of seven long-term care facilities in response to high building costs and to help manage a record deficit was detrimental in a province struggling to keep up with an aging population, B.C. seniors advocate Dan Levitt highlighted in a report earlier this year.

The NDP told Postmedia News that since 2017 it has approved 37 long-term care projects, creating 5,572 beds. If re-elected, another 1,300 spaces would be added by spring 2028, it said.

The B.C. Conservatives criticized the NDP’s cancellation of care homes that “communities were counting on” and said it will get care homes built, but didn’t give further details.

CentreBC also didn’t give details, but said the cancelling of the long-term care facilities “places the burden on our acute care hospital beds, because there is nowhere to discharge patients to.”

The B.C. Green party said it would grow publicly funded long-term care beds by 10 per cent a year. It also said it would build plans for long-term and assisted-living care “to close the gap between what urban and rural seniors get, and what Indigenous and non-Indigenous seniors get.”

Besides building more long-term care facilities, Jones’ group is also pressing for a reversal of changes to B.C.’s property tax deferrals program for seniors that were introduced by the NDP in its 2026 budget. The changes, which shift the calculation from using a low simple interest rate to a higher compounding rate and increasing it from minus-two per cent to plus-two per cent, have made it more expensive and difficult for seniors to remain in their homes, according to the association.

The NDP said changes to the property tax deferral program don’t impact day-to-day finances and there has been a lot of inaccurate information. It said that under the old system “the program was repeatedly appearing on investment and wealth management websites, as well as news media, as an opportunity for investors.”

The party said Levitt earlier addressed criticism of the changes by noting that despite the tax deferment “costing $1,200 more per year on average with the changes, the loan is not due until the home sells, which is a huge advantage over other lending programs.”

The Conservatives said they would “help more seniors age at home” and “stop making it harder for them to keep the homes they worked for,” but didn’t elaborate.