New seniors advocate report shows growing gap in B.C. long-term care demand, capacity<\/a><\/p>\nGovernment numbers released last year, meanwhile, show B.C. will need 16,000 new long-term care beds over the next decade to make up the gap between the projected supply of publicly subsidized beds and projected demand.\u00a0<\/p>\n
B.C.\u2019s senior population, aged 65 and older, is projected to increase by 26 per cent in the next 10 years, and wait-lists for long-term care have \u201cballooned,\u201d according to a report released by the seniors advocate in July 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It shows that the number of people on the wait-list for long-term care tripled from 2,381 to 7,212 between 2016 and 2025. Wait times doubled from 146 days in 2018, the first year of data collection, to 290 days in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout significant additional investment in building more new long-term care beds, wait-lists and wait times will continue to rise to unsustainable levels,\u201d it reads.<\/p>\n
When Finance Minister Brenda Bailey announced the delays in last month\u2019s budget, she said they would allow the facilities to be built at a lower cost in the future, by better distributing demand for building materials and other costs.<\/p>\n
Speaking to local business leaders one day after tabling her budget, Bailey said she was asked to sign off on a project that would have cost $1.8 million per bed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s crazy,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cThat is so expensive, you could buy a condo in (Victoria\u2019s) James Bay for $1.8 million.\u201d<\/p>\n
Government, she said, had to do better. \u201cHow are we going to serve seniors? If we are spending that kind (of money), we\u2019re going to be able to build very few.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The finance minister said the government was looking into ways to standardize design of long-term care facilities without compromising quality of care, and she has insisted the delays are not cancellations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hackett agreed with Bailey\u2019s rationale to save money \u2014 but only to a point.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Government, she said, needed to make sure that it got the best value for money. \u201cBut any time you delay a project, your costs are going to increase, because the costs of everything are increasing,\u201d Hackett said.<\/p>\n
The Opposition is not buying Bailey\u2019s arguments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Peter Milobar, the Conservative finance critic, called the delays a \u201cmean-spirited attack\u201d on seniors during budget debate last month.<\/p>\n
His colleague Brennan Day, critic for rural health and seniors health, said in the legislature that he did not believe Bailey\u2019s promise to build the delayed projects at lower costs, saying the government had \u201ccompletely abandoned seniors.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He later tabled legislation to require government to become more transparent around the state of long-term care.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou cannot fix what you do not measure,\u201d he said last month. \u201cThis bill forces the government to publish and update annually a clear plan to address long-term care beds, hospice capacity, wait-lists and care at home in full public view,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Dan Levitt, B.C.\u2019s seniors advocate, told reporters after Bailey presented her budget that the delays would deepen the gap between projected needs and construction of long-term care beds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While he acknowledged the financial realities facing the province, he said delays would put more pressure on hospitals as seniors spent more time in emergency rooms and acute care.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to put pressure on doctor\u2019s offices, because that is where the seniors are going to go to get medical care,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to put pressure on the family caregivers. People who should be in workforce are now caring for that senior. It\u2019s also going to create a situation where seniors are not getting the kind of care they should be.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The process of finding a long-term care solution for Brian Wolfe wasn\u2019t easy for James Wolfe, but he said it was worth it.<\/p>\n
Wolfe said his brother is \u201cdoing really well,\u201d after having regained up to 13 pounds in weight in five weeks. Wolfe said his brother weighed only about 96 pounds when he went to hospital in January.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to take time off work to go deal with where he is, and stuff like that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s quite an emotional roller-coaster, and it doesn\u2019t seem like anybody truly has any answers to anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 19, 2026.<\/p>\n
READ MORE:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Wolfe, who lives in B.C.\u2019s Fraser Valley, spent the last year and a half looking for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":["post-552182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}