Premier Eby's roll out of programs continues on at a very quick pace

Premier David Eby has been holding frequent news conferences in the
last week, outlining a range of new program and improvements
to previous government initiatives

He's only been on the job for ten days, but Premier David Eby has made the most of his time so far.

Mr. Eby rolling out a range of programs and initiatives in less than a week, as well as to answer some areas of concern for British Columbians.

Some of those themes on housing and community safety we explored as art of our MLA's review of the weekend. 

That list however now already out of date, following a Sunday information session where the Premier and Health Minister Adrian Dix announced new measures for the Health Care sector that will make it easier for Internationally educated family doctors to go into practice in British Columbia.

The latest moves coming through the Practice Ready Assessment program, which will work towards addressing the shortage of Family physicians in the province.

“The pandemic has exposed underlying challenges and added new strains to our public health-care system, and too many British Columbians are struggling to find a family doctor. Meanwhile, family doctors trained outside of Canada aren’t able to practise family medicine, because they lack a pathway to be licensed here. We need to fix this. That’s why we’re taking action to help get more internationally trained doctors off the sidelines and into communities where they are so desperately needed.” -- Premier David Eby. 

Health Minster Adrian Dix, expanded on how the program will work noting how they plant triple the number of seats fro 32 to 96 by March of 2024.

“By tripling the number of seats over the next 16 months under the Practice Ready Assessment program, providing a new pathway for international medical graduates to work as associate physicians, and removing barriers for doctors from the United States to work in B.C., we are delivering in our commitment to patients and building strong team-based care for all British Columbians,” -- Adrian Dix, Minister of Health.

The full background on how the program will work is explained here.

You can learn more about the Practice  Ready Assessment program here.

The information session for the Premier and Health Minister  can be reviewed from the video of Sunday's update.

More health care themes will be explored this afternoon when the Premier holds another information session at 1 PM.  

Mr Eby will be joined by a number of cabinet ministers to outline the government's plans towards increased training opportunities for the health care sector.

The provincial government's frantic pace towards new programs will most likely continue, now that they have found a few extra dollars in the Legislature cushions .

Last week, Finance Minister Selina Robinson provided a financial update noting of a revised figure for the provincial surplus, which was noted as 5.7 Billion dollars.

Some financial wriggle room for Mr. Eby to most likely make use of through the winter and beyond.

MLA's won't have an opportunity make mention of the latest news out of Victoria in the Legislature until sometime next year, the Fall Session came to an end with the Thursday afternoon session.

You can review more notes on the work of the northwest MLA's through our archive page here.

More notes on the British Columbia political scene can be reviewed through our D'Arcy McGee blog and our Victoria Viewpoints feature.