The BC Conservatives are denying a claim from an NDP MLA alleging that the party wants to cut healthcare by billions of dollars.
On Thursday, the BC Conservatives announced their party’s healthcare platform, promising large reforms to the province’s single-payer healthcare model.
After the BC Conservatives’ healthcare announcement, Langford-Juan de Fuca MLA Ravi Parmar uploaded a video to X, with the caption claiming that the BC Conservatives want to make the biggest cut to the province’s healthcare budget in history, and that this would result in doctors and nurses being fired.
Parmar pointed to page 12 of the BC Conservatives’ “Patients First” healthcare plan, claiming that the BC Conservatives are planning a $4.1 billion cut to the province’s healthcare and that they want to privatize the healthcare system.
“John Rustad held a press conference today and he was having trouble talking about the particulars of his plan, but let me give you a big one. GDP spending targets page 12, what he’s proposing is $4.1 billion in cuts from our healthcare system,” said Parmar.
On page 12 of the BC Conservatives’ healthcare platform, the party cites an assessment from Deloitte projecting Canada’s healthcare spending as a share of GDP to rise from 12.4% to 13.9% by 2040, and that reforms and modernization can bring this figure under 11%.
The BC Conservative healthcare platform does not promise any cuts to healthcare spending, nor do they state that they plan to cut back on the number of nurses or doctors.True North reached out to the NDP and Parmar for comment, asking him how he had come up with the $4.1 billion figure but no response was given.
Parmar potentially used the figures from the Deloitte assessment to reach the $4.1 billion figure.Dropping Canada’s healthcare expenditures as a share of GDP from 12.4% to 11% would represent a 12.1% drop in healthcare spending as a share of the economy.
For fiscal year 2026-2027, the BC government is projected to spend $34,594,000,000 on healthcare, and a 12.1% slash in the healthcare budget would total just over $4.1 billion.
However, the Deloitte assessment was not specific to British Columbia, and the assessment stated that reaching the 11% target would only be possible with significant reforms.
Furthermore, the BC Conservatives did not state that they would cut the government’s healthcare budget as a share of GDP, as the party merely cited the Deloitte assessment to highlight a national problem.
In a comment to True North, BC Conservative spokesperson Anthony Koch said that he has no idea where Parmar had gotten the figure, and that the claim is a lie.
“We do not plan on cutting the province’s healthcare budget by 4.1 billion (or at all). Our promise yesterday clearly outlined the fact that we want to invest more, not less, in British Columbia’s healthcare system,” said Koch.
“We have absolutely no idea where that number came from, it’s made up. It’s just another lie from the NDP.”
BC Conservative Leader John Rustad said that the $4.1 billion figure is a lie while MLA Elenore Sturko accused Parmar of fear mongering.“
Conservatives will grow health spending & innovate, so BC’s patients get more services for less. Sadly, I’ve seen this 4.1 billion in cuts lie repeated unchecked by media,” said Rustad.
“Typical NDP fear mongering. With this type of fake math it’s no wonder we have an $8 billion deficit – all while British Columbians are dying on healthcare waitlists,” said Sturko.
