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Constituency Liaison Program
- Do you care about your colleagues and patients, and want the best possible healthcare system?
- Do you think MLAs need to better understand the importance of the work you do?
- Do you have 1-2 hours a month to make lasting change?
If you answered yes, then you are a fantastic candidate for the HSA Constituency Liaison Program.
Be part of a program that has been linking HSA members to their local MLAs for over a decade. HSA provides the theoretical and practical training to give you confidence in these conversations, and the credible, reliable information to help you ensure that all elected representatives in British Columbia understand the issues facing our members, our union, and our communities.
The issues we bring forward through the program are grounded in the experiences of you, HSA members. By joining the CL program, you are part of ensuring that all elected representatives, no matter what political party they represent, are aware of the challenges we face and the solutions we have to offer. There are currently two streams in the CL program – one with a focus on health care issues, and one that focuses on child development centres.
The constructive relationships built through this program have helped shape government policy and support strong public health care and community social services.
Intake for new constituency liaisons will open in spring 2025. If you are interested in joining the program, please contact Nicole Seguin at Nicole.Seguin [@] hsabc.org for more information.
Constituency Liaison topics
Each year the Constituency Liaison program renews activities and revise its focus based on current issues or challenges that our members want to address.
The topics this year are:
BC is suffering from an unprecedented shortage of the skilled professionals needed to deliver health care. While everyone knows about the shortage of doctors and nurses, we need to pay more attention to the shortage of the specialized health professionals who work alongside them. There are over 70 different professions within the health sciences, and while there are only a few thousand or even just a few dozen of each working in BC, their role in the system is enormous.
Unfortunately, these front line professionals are burning out – especially those in supervisory positions.
After years of managing crushing workload arising from unfilled vacancies, one of every three health science professionals currently report they plan to quit in the next two years.
As the union representing over 22,000 specialized health professionals delivering health care and community social services across BC, HSA recommends urgent action to hang on to the professionals working on the front lines, and recruit new professionals.
Briefing Note: We must act to retain BC’s specialized health professionals – or we will lose them
The BC government is working to establish Family Connection Centres (FCCs) -- a new centralized service model for kids with development disabilities. This is an important opportunity to improve services – but a recent pilot program shows that we need to make changes to keep these services in the public health care system.
Briefing Note: Children on waitlists need more funding and more specialized health professionals