While the promise of a new complex care facility for Kamloops is good news, the MLA for Kamloops North Thompson wants to know when exactly it will be built.

Peter Milobar says he will be keeping a close eye on what the provincial government has planned for Kamloops and other communities when it presents the 2022 budget on Feb. 22.

“We’ve heard a lot around the complex care issues, we’ve heard a lot around school capital funding, a lot around local infrastructure projects. We’re really going to be keeping a close eye on things,” Milobar said, noting the budget will outline the government’s spending plans for the next three years.

“That is why we’ll be keeping a very close eye not if the complex care expansion is in the budget, but what year it is actually slated for in the budget. That is the bigger and more critical piece, I think, to people in Kamloops who are looking for some sorts of relief and solutions to a lot of the disorder that we are seeing and people in crisis on our streets.”

B.C.’s Minister Responsible for Housing, David Eby, told Kamloops Council last month that he was “very hopeful” that the Kamloops complex care facility would appear in this year’s provincial budget.

“The complex care announcement, I went back and re-read it, and it very much sounds like pilot sites, but two sentences later they were referring to a budget that will be introduced a month later,” Milobar said, on Tuesday.

“There is not really a feasible way that you can run a meaningful pilot project within a month let alone get anything up and running to have new sites announced a month later.”

He says if there is no mention of the Kamloops complex care facility, then both he and Kamloops-South Thompson MLA, Todd Stone, will keep lobbying for it.

“Both mental health and addictions as well as the housing minister have all indicated Kamloops is on the radar screen, they’ve made that very public,” Milobar said. “If it is not in this budget, why is it not in this budget? What is the true timeline? Why would they give a community that type of hope? That is that bigger piece that we would wind up having to do.”

“We hope to not have to do it. It is better to try to have the money already identified in the budget but that is ultimately our job.”

Stone meanwhile said that the pair will also be looking to see what healthcare funds are allocated for the Kamloops area, given concerns from healthcare professionals and residents about long waitlists and “deteriorating workplace environments” at Royal Inland Hospital.

“There are some very significant leadership challenges when it comes to Royal Inland Hospital. There are some very questionable funding decisions that have been taken by Interior Health,” Stone said.

“There has been some very alarming communication issues and there is a significant investment that’s required in staffing and is required in the kinds of improvements to care that people receive at RIH for a city and an area of over 100,000 that this hospital serves.”

The long-promised Kamloops Cancer Centre is also something that Stone and Milobar are keeping an eye out for. Milobar also told council that unlike Question Period, all MLAs have an opportunity to discuss issues at length with the appropriate minister during the budget process.

“You can ask questions for literally hours upon hours of the same minister,” Milobar said. “If they’re not highlighted within the budget, these are certainly projects we want to get to the representative ministers and find out where exactly Kamloops is on that priority list.”