Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition on behalf of British Columbians who are facing repeated closures of hospital emergency rooms. In my riding, some of those closures took place during the Chilcotin landslides, on the hottest day in 2024 and on many days since. While hospital closures are regularly blamed on staffing shortages, delays in recognition of foreign-trained health care workers and a critical lack of housing supply are exacerbating the issue.
The petitioners call on the Government of Canada to work with provincial counterparts to ensure that foreign-trained health care workers are notified within 60 days of their eligibility to practise and to address the severe lack of available housing for such workers.