NDP and Green candidates flail, make audacious claims during Abby-Mission debate

PENTICTON — The last scheduled debate of the Abbotsford-Mission byelection produced several memorable lines the NDP and Green candidates will have to live with until September 26..Four of five candidates took the stage at the Clarke Theatre on Monday. The Mission Regional Chamber of Commerce hosted the debate from 6 pm PT to 8 pm PT and streamed it live. BC Conservative Leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay, NDP candidate Pam Alexis, Green candidate Stephen Fowler and CentreBC candidate Lakhwinder Jhaj sat on the panel. Libertarian candidate Jeff Monds, in libertarian fashion, skipped the hall a second time.Alexis, the former Mission mayor and former agriculture minister, opened the debate by fielding a question on healthcare by making a strange claim that would define the rest of her night. She told the room that, "the last [she] had heard, everyone looking for a doctor [had] received one.".Anyone living in British Columbia without a doctor — of which there are well over a million — knows that the numbers and public record do not support the claim.Then-health minister and current BC NDP finance minister Josie Osborne told the legislature this spring that 1,259,425 British Columbians — about 23% of the population — were unattached to a primary-care provider as of April. She put the Health Connect Registry wait-list at 345,000 as of March and the median wait in Fraser Health at 241 days. The Abbotsford Division of Family Practice still directs residents to that registry. The backlog is so severe, HealthLink BC tells registrants it cannot even provide an estimate of how long a match will take..Locally, Mission Memorial Hospital has been closing its emergency department overnight for lack of physicians.In other words, not only can it be exceedingly difficult for British Columbians to find a family doctor, it may be difficult for residents in Abbotsford or Mission to find any doctor in the event of an emergency.Fraser Health's own Mission page, updated September 11, listed another 5 pm PT-to-8 am PT interruption for September 12 and 13 — the weekend before the debate. Fraser Health's posted schedule shows at least 16 overnight interruption dates in August and early September. Findlay put the 2026 closure count above 70..Alexis, who later suggested to her debate opponent that a cancer patient in Mission could find a family doctor by simply contacting a "division of family practice," called the local emergency-room closures "frustrating," but added there was “good news on the horizon” because of an $18-million expansion.That project is real. Fraser Health said construction started in February and will raise care spaces from 17 to 41, with completion set for spring 2027.The expansion does not staff overnight shifts now, however — offering little relief to residents seeking medical care in an emergency..The housing fight was smaller and louder.Findlay put a supportive-housing project in the riding on the table and said it had sat empty for five years because of safety issues. Alexis cut in and said the vacancy was two years, not five..Neither gave the civic address on the tape, but the project that matches the argument is BC Housing's 50-studio building at 7460 Hurd St., built on what had been Dr. Humes Memorial Park.The BC government announced it on August 20, 2021. Alexis, then the MLA, was on the release. She said at the time that too many people had been forced into shelters or onto the street, and thanked the partners for “a place of their own to call home.” Capital funding was $12.3 million from the Building BC Supportive Housing Fund, with an annual operating subsidy of $1.5 million. As much as $1.1 million more comes each year from the mental-health ministry to Fraser Health for 12 complex-care units inside the building.However, construction did not start with the announcement. BC Housing said in May 2023 that work would begin that spring. A city information session held March 12, 2024 still pointed to a spring 2024 opening. It did not open then either. In July 2024, BC Housing told the Mission Record tenants were expected by fall. Mission Community Services told the same paper the building opened in September 2024, with about 18 people moving over from the Diamond Head Motor Inn shelter on Logan Avenue. That shelter's final 21 guests moved out October 31. MCSS announced the building's formal opening in late March 2025, with all vacancies expected to be filled by April.Announcement to first tenants took more than three years..Business questions pulled the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or DRIPA, onto the floor. Asked what each candidate would do to attract business back to British Columbia, Findlay restated the Conservative repeal pledge and said private property rights are under threat. Alexis answered that repeal would "play havoc on the economy" — a statement that drew a mixed reaction of shock, anger, and laughter..The original round of DRIPA legislation passed unanimously in November 2019 under then-premier John Horgan. Then-minister Scott Fraser told the House the bill would have “no immediate effect other than as an interpretive aid” and would bring “no legal force and effect.” The BC Court of Appeal disagreed this year, ruling in Gitxaała that DRIPA's obligatory language gives it real legal weight. Even the BC NDP Premier David Eby spent the spring calling the ruling a "serious legal problem," floated a pause or amendments, then backed off after First Nations leadership and parts of his own caucus pushed back. Elections BC has approved Conservative MLA Harman Bhangu's initiative petition to repeal the act. Canvassing opens October 26..BC Green candidate Fowler went much further.Asked how candidates would work with local First Nations, the Rick Hansen Secondary teacher said the last 15, 20, 25 years of listening had not produced agreement, then said the colonial history with indigenous people was “not good.”“It's a one-sided collective history … let's get real here — we're not doing this fair trade thing. This is where one side basically tried to attempt a genocide,” he said..When the live audience reacted, again, with some boos and jeers, Fowler brushed the reactions aside — "no, no, no, sorry" — and encouraged the hecklers to "read about doctor's reports from the early residential schools... in the 1915s" when they actually said this is what they were attempting with the chicken pox and everything else going on."There is no published medical file from that era supporting this. Fowler was likely thinking of the Parliamentary report produced by Dr. Peter Henderson Bryce, chief medical officer for the Department of Indian Affairs, who inspected prairie residential schools in 1907 and wrote annual health reports into 1914. His 1907 report and his 1922 pamphlet The Story of a National Crime named tuberculosis as the killer in overcrowded, poorly ventilated dormitories. He put known deaths among recorded pupils near 25%.The Truth and Reconciliation Commission later listed chicken pox as one outbreak among many — Norway House recorded it beside whooping cough in 1902-03 — not as any stated plan to wipe people out. No Department of Indian Affairs doctor's report from “the 1915s,” or any other period, has ever been produced that says officials were attempting genocide with chicken pox..Wednesday’s Abbotsford Chamber debate had no public audience, whereas Monday’s Mission date did — offering a more lively atmosphere and debate. There are no more scheduled debates ahead of voting day.Conservative MLA Reann Gasper resigned the Abbotsford-Mission seat August 22 so Findlay could run. Gasper beat Alexis in 2024, 13,523 to 10,894, 55.38% to 44.62%. Alexis held the riding for the NDP from 2020 to 2024. Fowler took 2,667 votes here in 2020, 10.57%, then sat 2024 out. Jhaj is CentreBC’s first candidate on any ballot.Advance voting runs September 18 to 23. Polls on September 26 are open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. The legislature returns October 5. Findlay still needs this seat if she is going to lead from inside the chamber when it does.

NDP and Green candidates flail, make audacious claims during Abby-Mission debate

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