Tuesday April 20th

Three main topics were covered yesterday: hospital crowding, mental health services for youth, and school districts. Two Ministers fielded these questions: Kevin Falcon for the health care issues, and Margaret MacDiarmid for education.

Exchange #1

As usual Carol James started things off. She began by asking what Kevin intended to do today to combat the issues of crowding in Vernon. This is what I would categorize as an impossible question. Ministers are often not capable of acting today, especially when the problem presented to them is as systemic as the overcrowding in the hospital in Vernon. Kevin Falcon, always the quick thinker easily capitalized on Carole's present by delivering a synopsis of why it was the NDP's fault that situation in Vernon has arisen. Carole's follow up question of why doesn't Kevin listen to the doctors provided Kevin with another easy to catch lob. He got to talk more on the 180 million dollars that the Liberals are investing to help the Vernon hospital. For her final question, Carole asked again what the Minister would do today. I don't blame Kevin for missing the question though, as it was buried by an unrelated question accusing Kevin of not being upfront with the public when even though Kevin is one of my least favourite politicians, he is always very clear in displaying his feelings and intentions. To his credit, Kevin finished things off by talking of recent action taken by the Liberal government to combat the issues being experienced by the Vernon hospital.

Winner of this exchange: Kevin

What Carole was intending to ask/should have asked instead

Question 1: "What does the minister plan to do today to deal with these serious concerns?" Here Carole is asking what Kevin is going to increase the capacity of emergency room doctors at the Vernon Hospital. However, her question is very nebulous and doesn't provide Kevin with any parameters for an expected response. For instance, when I ask you what you want for dinner, I expect you'll respond by saying something food related. Specific to her question, Carole could have asked any of the following alternatives:
1) Will the government commit to hiring more doctors/nurses for the Vernon ER?
2) Will the government provide monies to purchase more beds for the Vernon ER?
3) Will the government talk to Provincial med school representatives to ensure that more family doctors are opening up in Vernon because having more family doctors available tends to keep more people from the ER etc.

Exchange #2
Health Critic Adrian Dix then continued the issue once Carole had used up her allotted questions. Adrian can be a little difficult to listen to in QP b/c he tends to be very incendiary with the way that he talks. As a true testament to the often playground nature of QP, I have even heard fellow MLAs mock the stammer that Adrian often acquires when he gets a little too excited. Adrian performed according to expectations yesterday allowing Kevin to speak more of the Liberal accomplishments.

Question 2:
When I wrote my thesis last year I noted that even though opposition members are only supposed to ask one question per question and answer turn, they can often end up asking more than one question. So keeping with the rules, I only analyzed the first question that was asked. However, within Adrian's performance yesterday, his second question "What is the minister going to do now to help doctors in Vernon deal with the crisis in their Emergency rooms" was a lot more coherent and relevant than his first question "What's the minister going to do now?" I expect the Minister is going to stand up as soon as you finish talking and commence grandstanding.

Questions the Opposition health critic should have asked instead:
1) What is the minister going to do in the interim, while waiting for the completion of the new care tower, to assist doctors with the crowding?
2) What proportion of this new tower will actually be dedicated to ER space?
3) Will new staff be hired so as to maximize care delivery once the new tower is opened?
4) Why does the minister keep talking about mistakes that we the NDP made instead of focusing on actions the Liberal government can take in improve health care?

To be continued....