Frank Caputo, member of parliament for Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo stopped by the Free Press office on his last visit in 100 Mile House on May 24 to discuss what is happening in the riding.
The top concern in the South Cariboo is what he called quality of life and covers everything from housing to healthcare to inflation.
He said that while COVID-19 was awful it allowed for some positive changes in healthcare. “I think what it did is allowed people to have more virtual medical appointments or more medical appointments by phone, if you need a prescription renewal.”
He added that while these types of issues are generally provincial in scope he has been getting so many letters on the subject that he feels compelled to take action.
“So in the next three or four months, I’ve kind of made it a summer project for one of our staff, he’s a PhD student, and his project is going to be kind of looking at doctors in the area,” he said. “In terms of what does Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo have to offer so that we can look at this because this is a national crisis.”
Even though this is more of a provincial jurisdiction, Caputo said that as an MP he doesn’t know that he would be doing his job if he wasn’t asking what can be done to attract more professionals to the area.
On a federal level, there needs to be a change when it comes to doctors and other professionals and the process of applying to Canada.
Caputo said he was speaking with two specialists who said it took 18 months to get approval.
“It should be 60 days period to know if they can work in Canada. If we take 18 months and another country takes 14 months or 12 months or 10 months and people are looking at different options, you know, that makes us less competitive while we have an acute (healthcare) crisis.
“Rather than just BandAid solution after BandAid solution.”
Before he was elected he did not appreciate that immigration and health care go hand in hand.
“So that’s something I’m hoping to see more action on as well,” he said. “It’s something that we are pressuring the federal government on. Whether there will be action on that I’m not sure. There’s still a backlog into the millions when it comes to immigration so that filing in my view is still quite a mess.”
fiona.grisswell@100milefreepress.net
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