BC Budget delivers no hope for Northern seniors
Peace Villa Expansion, basically cancelled: SONS president
FORT ST. JOHN – The cuts to capital health spending in British Columbia’s budget is “devastating” to both seniors in the North, and to Save Our Northern Seniors president, Margaret Little.
“They presented a budget and said Peace Villa might be delayed for a long time, but they gave no alternatives. They gave no hope. There was no hope for our people who are waiting to get in there. No hope for the families, for the friends and the caregivers,” Little said.
Little feels like the community is right back where it started in 1999, thanks to the cancellation of the Peace Villa expansion.
“It took a long time to get Peace Villa in the first place. It was a long time ago, but here we are again,” she said.
“I, personally, was devastated because all I could think of was now we’re going to be sending our loved ones to other places that may have places or may not have places, and we’re right back to 1999.”
When Peace Villa opened in 2012, the 124 beds were full on opening day. Since then, the need in the community has grown, as SONS predicted. With the number of people in Fort St. John either in the hospital awaiting a bed in Peace Villa, at home on the waitlist, or making use of services designed to help keep seniors in their own homes longer – the situation has not improved in the intervening 13 years.
In September 2025, there were 19 people in the hospital waiting for a bed in Peace Villa, 41 in the community, including 11 from another community on the waitlist, for a total of 60. Fast-forward to January 2026, when there were 15 people in the hospital, 59 in the community for a total of 74 people waiting to get into Peace Villa.
“Fifteen people occupying the beds in the hospital, and the ER is full,” Little said.
The planned expansion would’ve provided 84 beds, plus 30 adult day program spaces.
“The biggest concern I have right now, is that [Peace Villa’s third house] is basically cancelled, because by the time they get around to having any money to build it, the cost will have gone up again.”
Other services in the community, besides Peace Villa are seeing huge demand, with 300 people accessing the services provided through Better At Home, and a further 98 receiving Home Support.
“The need is here in the community, and on top of all this, we have a number of people that are homeless, that are going to need a place to be.”
But there is nowhere for anyone to go. There are waitlists for every facility. Dan Levitt, the Senior’s Advocate has also said that there’s no plan for the seniors in the province.
“You can’t secure BC’s future by throwing the seniors off the bus. The seniors built this province, they spend money in this province, they’ve lived here for a long time – it’s not that we’re free-loading on the system, we give our share back to the province,” said Little.
Little is very concerned about not only the seniors in the hospital, but those in the care home and their caregivers, their families and friends. Being a caregiver takes its toll, especially for someone who needs more care, and Little says families and caregivers are stretched “to the max.”
“Many of them can’t afford to have regular, in-house care, they rely on the system to help them with their families and now, if they’re on the waitlist, it means they’re getting desperate. And they need to have someplace to go.
“It impacts everybody, and sooner or later you’re going to have caregivers breaking down and having to use the hospital facilities themselves because they become ill.”
Little says that more funding is needed for United Way, which runs the Better at Home program, Northern Health needs funds to hire more Home Support staff, as well as more staff in long-term care.
That’s in addition to building a third house at Peace Villa.
“It’s a vicious circle, you have people in the hospital who need more care, who are sitting in the hallways, basically not able to participate in a lot of activities because there’s no staff to take them.” And the volunteers who often take seniors to these activities are burning out.
With no solutions, no alternatives and no hope for families Little says that a Town Hall meeting should be the next step for the North, because “the powers that be in government need to hear from our community what we actually feel.”
“We’re caught between a rock and a hard place.”