With the Union of BC municipalities conference kicking off next week, the Mayor of Clearwater is gearing up for a busy week with plans to discuss several ongoing issues with provincial leaders.

Mayor Merlin Blackwell says addressing the healthcare crisis across the province will be top of mind for him heading into the UBCM conference.

He says his schedule for the conference is already full and is getting fuller by the day.

“I have meetings with Katrine Conroy, Minister of Forests and Health Minister Adrian Dix in person on the healthcare issues in Clearwater, BC Hydro, natural gas for the North Thompson, Trans Mountain Pipeline, and Rogers Communication on cellular/internet connection up here… So it is going to be a hair-straight-back week.”

As his community is dealing with ongoing issues at the hospital in Clearwater, ambulance shortages, Blackwell explains that he along with other rural BC mayors will be pushing the Health Minister to address the healthcare crisis.

“They are really focused on a top-down long-term strategy, but we local mayors can really do the bottom-up short-term stuff like finding daycare, finding housing–solving the small town problems.– But they got to let us in they got to let us to the table, so we know exactly what is going on.”

While he says they have found some common ground with the province such as advocating for international medical grads… Blackwell says more still needs to be done.

“To assist with those systems, we need to help with clearing some gatekeeping on the nurse’s organizations and the doctor’s organizations. We have had lots to talk about the commonalities with the problems, which are shocking and province-wide.”

The UBCM conference goes from September 12 to 16.