The two Kamloops MLAs are criticizing Health Minister Adrian Dix for breaking yet another promise when it comes to the Kamloops Cancer Care Centre.

Adrian Dix appeared to make the promise in the legislature on Nov. 28 of last year, saying that the four new cancer centres being built in B.C. would each have a PET-CT scanner.

“The only PET-CT scanners that existed when I became minister of health, Honorable Speaker, was in Vancouver,” Dix said, responding to a question for BC United Leader, Kevin Falcon. “We’ve added in Kelowna and Victoria. We are adding in multiple other communities as we add cancer centres in Nanaimo and in Kamloops and in Surrey and in Burnaby, Mr. Speaker.”

“It’s why it’s so important when I talk to people in the Interior and on Vancouver Island. It’s why people repeatedly come up and say how important it is for them to have PET-CT scanners in their communities,” Dix said, a little later on in the debate. “Why that affects their experience of cancer care, their ability to get diagnosis, their ability to avoid…. For many people in the province….

“Diagnosis is part of the treatment process, and it’s very important. I thought that’s what the members were asking about. What we have is a ten-year cancer plan that is comprehensive in its response to an issue that is challenging and will continue to be challenging in the years to come. That’s why we are massively investing in public health care after, frankly, a decade of inaction.”

However, when announcing that the business case for the Cancer Centre had been approved, Dix walked that promise back, saying that the Kamloops facility would not include a PET-CT scanner.

“He got up and he specifically said that there was going to be a PET-CT scanner here in Kamloops as part of this cancer centre,” Kamloops-South Thompson MLA Todd Stone said. “That is the latest state of the art diagnostic tool that is used in cancer care in the world today.”

“Media in this city have played the clip verbatim of him saying ‘Kamloops would have this scanner’ and so once again [he’s] brushing it off as if it was never actually said,” added Kamloops-North Thompson MLA Peter Milobar.

“Its his own words we’re talking about, his own timelines, his own words about what about will and won’t be in this building.”

Milobar, the BC United Finance Critic, also questioned the decision to include include any money for the Cancer Care Centre in this year’s provincial budget, which is expected to be tabled later this month.

“There will be no substantial dollars in this year’s provincial budget, in this year’s fiscal plan that will end April 1 of next year,” Milobar said.

“It means this government is saying ‘just trust us, we’ll have he money in the budget for you after the next election, and then we’ll actually get started in full force on this project.”

Construction on the long-promised Kamloops Cancer Care Centre is expected to begin next year, and be complete by 2028.

Dix also said the cancer facility at Royal Inland Hospital will be among the first to open.