The Conservative Party of BC is calling on the New Democrat-led government to fire Dr. Bonnie Henry over a continued requirement that health-care workers in the province be vaccinated against COVID-19.
In the legislature this week, Abbotsford South’s Bruce Banman — one of only two Conservative MLAs — accused the “extreme leftist NDP government” and its “unelected bureaucrats” of failing British Columbians with its mandate in the midst of a health-care crisis. He and party leader John Rustad, who represents Nechako Lakes, doubled down on their call on Thursday.
“British Columbia is one of very few jurisdictions in the world that refuses to hire back unvaccinated health-care workers,” Banman posted on X.
“We need these people in the system. We’ve got ERs that are shutting down, hospitals that are a mess … I think it is incompetent not to hire these people back and put them to work.”
The calls came just before the deputy leader of the BC Greens, Dr. Sanjiv Gandhi, stepped down for “liking” a post on X that compared Henry, the provincial health officer, to Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi doctor who experimented on concentration camp victims during the Second World War. Gandhi has since said that the “like” was accidental.
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“In mid-September, an individual I follow on X (formerly Twitter) posted a letter and comments, including an impassioned critique of healthcare delivery in BC. Intending to ‘like’ that post, I inadvertently ‘liked’ the post of a third party whom I do not follow, quoting the original tweet,” he posted to X on Thursday.
“I did not realizing my error until yesterday … as the subject of considerable racism in my own life, I know that words do matter.”
Gandhi apologized for the harm he caused.
While the Tories have opposed the vaccine mandate for health-care workers, the Greens have questioned Henry’s decision to lift a number of public health restrictions and questioned transparency around the process.
Health Minister Adrian Dix is defending Henry, citing a “tendency” among the Conservatives and Green party to launch a “personal attack” against the doctor, which is “unacceptable.”
“Ninety-nine per cent of health-care workers were vaccinated when we brought the order in,” he said Thursday. “Dr. Henry is an outstanding scientist, an outstanding leader. B.C. led Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic, led North America.
“While Bonnie Henry isn’t responsible for all of that, she was a very important and courageous public health leader through all those times, and she was and I think she has my 100 per cent support and she’ll continue to.”
The province’s Bill 36, passed in November last year, gave the health minister the authority to require vaccination against specified transmissible illnesses for health-care workers, and the boards of medical colleges to create bylaws to that effect.
The Health Professions and Occupations Act also ushered in sweeping changes to the oversight and regulation of health workers in the province, merging 15 health profession regulatory colleges into six and eliminating elected positions on college boards. It outlined discrimination as a form of professional misconduct, required anti-discrimination measures to be embedded in health-care delivery, separated investigations under the complains and adjudications process, and more.
Effective Oct. 3, health-care workers in most settings were also required to wear face masks as a temporary public health measure during respiratory season.