{"id":660170,"date":"2026-05-10T12:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T12:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/660170\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T12:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T12:31:08","slug":"universal-mental-health-care-review-endorsed-by-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/660170\/","title":{"rendered":"Universal mental health care review endorsed by committee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The City of Dawson Creek has put out the call partners to ask the province to consider it<\/p>\n<p>Prince George\u2019s Standing Committee on Intergovernmental Affairs voted unanimously at its Friday, May 8 meeting to endorse a call from the City of Dawson Creek for the province to launch an independent review of universal mental health care.<\/p>\n<p>Attached to the meeting agenda was a copy of a letter distributed to members of a Mental Health and Addiction Accord that Dawson Creek is asking they personalize and send to representatives of the provincial government.<\/p>\n<p>The letter mentions <a href=\"https:\/\/www.princegeorgecitizen.com\/local-news\/province-feds-to-replace-tumbler-ridge-school-12252882\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the deadly Feb. 10 school shooting that occurred in Tumbler Ridge<\/a> and requests \u201cthat the province initiate an independent, expert-led review to examine the feasibility and design of universal, publicly funded mental health care in British Columbia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It lists barriers faced by residents of communities across BC in accessing mental health care like limited clinical capacity, long wait times and a reliance on private health insurance to pay for existing services.<\/p>\n<p>Coun. Garth Frizzell, the committee\u2019s chair, noted at the meeting that Prince George has been working on the accord since 2024.<\/p>\n<p>At a symposium held in Prince George that year, various municipalities, regional districts including Fraser-Fort George, not-for-profit organizations, Indigenous organizations and communities signed the accord as a pledge to improve urgent mental health and addictions challenges being experienced in northern and central British Columbia.<\/p>\n<p>The committee voted unanimously on May 8 to recommend that the whole of council approve a motion to have Mayor Simon Yu sign a Prince George copy of the letter and send it to the province.<\/p>\n<p>That item will now be discussed at a future city council meeting. It is not currently on the agenda for the next meeting on Monday, May 11 but it could still appear as a late addition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The City of Dawson Creek has put out the call partners to ask the province to consider it&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,244163,84,393,394],"class_list":["post-660170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-city-of-prince-georgeprince-george-city-councilstanding-committee-on-intergovernmental-affairs","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660170","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=660170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}