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Don't give me the grand talk about

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spending tens of billions
on big buildings.

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That has nothing to do with us.

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Not that it's completely unrelated,

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but we think the urgent priority is

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to cut wait times for
medical care right away.

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Wait too long and people die.

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I looked at the provincial
NDP government's

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report on health care.

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They say they've invested
a huge amount of money,

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but we can't see it.

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This isn't what a developed
country looks like.

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Right? How can you make a patient
wait four months?

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They'll pass the debt on

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to us ordinary people.

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We'd been preparing for a
2028 provincial election.

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We weren't ready either.

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Lots of friends tell me, "Lao Chen,

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medical wait times are far too long.

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Shouldn't this be raised?" Right.

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When people raise concerns like this—

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I've been through it myself.
I needed a scan

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on my leg, and it took
four months to get in.

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And even four months was
only by squeezing in.

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The hospital said,

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"Either you wait six months,

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or someone just cancelled
within four months—

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can you be here at 8 a.m.?"

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I said yes. Even jumping the queue,
it still took four months.

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So I've felt this firsthand too.

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- Your knee? Was it a CT scan?
- Yes, a CT.

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What else would it be?

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A CT scan—if you were in China,

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you'd get the results the same day.

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Same day. In China, it's always same day.

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But here you wait four months.

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Clearly, with Canada's
free health care system,

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the queues are really, really long,

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and doctors and facilities really

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still need a lot of improvement for now.

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That isn't what a developed
country looks like.

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Right? How can you make a patient
wait four months?

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So when our voters, our friends,

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our neighbours have these concerns

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and I feel the same way,

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then I think this becomes

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part of our party's platform. A party—

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as a grassroots party,

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we listen to the people
and speak for them,

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taking their hardships to
the provincial government

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in the hope that it will improve things.

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That's what a political party is for.

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Have you looked into,

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say, health care—suppose

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your party had a real voice

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and got elected. On health care,

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what would you actually do?

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I looked at the provincial
NDP government's

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report on health care.

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They say they've invested
a huge amount of money,

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but we can't see it.

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Take Richmond Hospital.

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However much money you put in,

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why is there only one CT scanner?

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This is really simple.

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A CT scanner isn't big money, is it?

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But what year was there only one?
Surely not now?

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Richmond Hospital

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really has just one?

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Go and try it. Try waiting in that line.

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Then why not choose another hospital?

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Because where you are—

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I was living in Richmond then,

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and the family doctor, you know—

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No matter how many you have—two, three—

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your patients, your population,

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are out of proportion to the machines.

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For a government, investing in

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a CT scanner should be a simple thing.

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This problem isn't just a year or two old.

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It's been years.
I've been here almost 30 years.

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I came out in '98,

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left China. It was like this 30 years ago,

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and 30 years later, it's still the same.

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That's clearly the government's problem,

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not the people's.

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Right? So in this situation,

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our party's platform

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is to speak for the people
and tell the province:

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when it comes to medical
equipment, shouldn't you

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invest more precisely?
Invest in what we can see,

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what we urgently need. We don't feel it.

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You say you've invested so much,

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but we can't see it. Or rather,

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patient wait times haven't come down.

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They haven't come down.

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Right? A key problem right now

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is that wait times are too long.

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It's not that your equipment is bad,

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or that your doctors are bad.

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The doctors are great,
the equipment is great,

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but after a month of waiting,
I'm already dead.

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In the end, a lot of my friends went back

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to China for surgery, and it went fine.

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Within a week of getting there,
it was done.

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Here, a one-month wait counts as short.

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So aren't you going to fix this?

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You can tell us how much you invested,

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but ordinary people can't see it at all.

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We only need the most basic things,

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like family doctors.

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There aren't enough
bilingual family doctors,

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right? At least not in this area.

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It's hard to see a doctor,
hard to find a family doctor.

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These are the most basic
needs in people's lives.

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As the government,
you should address them.

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Don't give me the grand talk about

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spending tens of billions
on big buildings.

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That has nothing to do with us.

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Not that it's completely unrelated,

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but we think the urgent priority is

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to cut wait times for
medical care right away.

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Wait too long and people die.

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Long-term planning and short-term

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problems both have to be addressed.

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Of course. So on health care,

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we know voters have strong demands,

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so we amplify that voice.

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That's one of our platform planks.
The second:

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people's tax burden is far too heavy now.

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How many taxes does BC have?

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The province is raising the PST again,

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raising the vacancy tax again.
Why raise taxes?

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I've seen the province's report too.

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From 2017, before the NDP took office,

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to now, compared with its predecessor,

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the debt—the government's
debt burden is up

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136%. In other words, it owes more.

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They say it's all been spent.
No matter where it went,

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once the government's in debt,
it raises taxes.

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Right? They'll pass the debt on

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to us ordinary people.

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Yes.

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So is the government spending this money

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on things that are all reasonable?

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This country doesn't have
anything like China's

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Discipline Inspection Commission

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or supervisory commission.
Nobody oversees it.

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Only the opposition keeps watch.

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But the opposition doesn't watch either,

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because its MLAs are in there too.

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It's not as if the NDP

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has all 93 MLAs—they're not all yours.

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The others are in there too, right?

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So in this situation,

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you spent all that money, and in the end

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you say, "We're in heavy debt,"
and raise taxes,

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so the whole burden

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falls on us ordinary people.

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A while back—in July,

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June or July—I watched a video

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of an elderly white woman.

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She recorded a video,

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and she was nearly in tears
while recording it.

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She said she'd just paid her property tax,

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and after paying it, she found

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she had only a few dozen
dollars left in the bank.

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Taxes are too heavy.

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So, I mean,

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after I watched that video,

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I thought, how are people
supposed to live?

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So this NDP government,

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on these two fronts,

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has done very poorly, in my view.

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Ordinary people generally think so too.

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I often go out to listen to people,

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talk with them, and ask,

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"Are you happy in this society?

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Is your happiness level high?"
Lately, not really.

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Lately, prices across the board have been—

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because when taxes are high,

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everything keeps going up.

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So how do you see it? I mean, now

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since the NDP

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has some people voicing dissatisfaction—

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Many people are dissatisfied.

187
00:07:05,089 --> 00:07:08,182
then why is Premier David Eby
calling an election?

188
00:07:08,858 --> 00:07:12,234
Everyone should know his goal by now.

189
00:07:12,271 --> 00:07:15,130
His opponent is the BC Conservatives—

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00:07:15,167 --> 00:07:18,915
not the federal Conservatives,
the BC Conservatives.

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Infighting has left them without a leader,

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and lots of members have left too.

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He figures that in this gap,

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with the whole Conservative
Party leaderless,

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he sees it as a...

196
00:07:32,401 --> 00:07:33,475
- Opportunistic, you mean?
- Yes.

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00:07:33,549 --> 00:07:35,386
He wants to expand his seats.

198
00:07:35,423 --> 00:07:37,651
He actually already has a majority.

199
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So in principle, it shouldn't matter much

200
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for pushing his own policies.

201
00:07:42,298 --> 00:07:44,933
But he wants to expand
his seats even more,

202
00:07:44,970 --> 00:07:48,557
so with his rival in crisis,
he moved it up two years.

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00:07:48,594 --> 00:07:50,956
We'd been preparing for a
2028 provincial election.

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00:07:50,994 --> 00:07:52,410
We weren't ready either.

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00:07:52,790 --> 00:07:55,585
Two years early, it's
suddenly been changed

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00:07:55,622 --> 00:07:59,819
to a new election for MLAs,
for the legislature.

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00:07:59,856 --> 00:08:02,345
He thinks that with his rival

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00:08:02,382 --> 00:08:04,484
this weak, he can expand his seats

209
00:08:05,259 --> 00:08:07,685
and govern four more years—
two extra years.

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00:08:07,759 --> 00:08:09,748
Because you haven't governed well.

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00:08:09,785 --> 00:08:11,833
Granted, if you'd governed well,
that'd be fine. But

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00:08:11,907 --> 00:08:14,231
this way, if he doesn't win,

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00:08:15,037 --> 00:08:15,954
that's also a...

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00:08:16,444 --> 00:08:19,704
Right, so it's really a kind of gamble.

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00:08:19,778 --> 00:08:21,769
It is a bit of a gamble. Right now,

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00:08:22,093 --> 00:08:24,681
the general reaction is negative:

217
00:08:24,718 --> 00:08:26,410
why did you have to lump it in

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00:08:26,447 --> 00:08:28,046
with the municipal
elections this time, right?