Premier calls controversial Okanagan MLA’s anti-vaccine rhetoric a ‘betrayal’

Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream MLA Tara Armstrong pushed anti-vaccine misinformation in the BC Legislative Assembly and Premier David Eby had some harsh words for her. 

Armstrong said today, Oct. 21, that 7,000 health-care workers left because of COVID-19 vaccine mandates while blaming the departure of seven obstetrician gynecologists in Kamloops and the temporary closure of Kelowna General Hospital’s pediatric unit on vaccine mandates.

“This government, that Premier, treated British Columbians like guinea pigs, forcing experimental procedures on them without their consent. Let’s face it, the numbers don’t lie. All seven doctors in the obstetrics department in Kamloops are gone. The paediatrics unit in Kelowna, gone,” Armstrong said. 

The gynecologists’ departure and KGH pediatric unit’s closure were both attributed to staff shortages and safety concerns about overworked health-care workers, rather than widespread condemnation of vaccines. The pediatric unit is in operation, but it was closed for several weeks during the summer. 

Eby said anti-vaccine rhetoric like Armstrong’s is dangerous, particularly at the beginning of flu season. 

“This anti-vax philosophy, which has no grounding in science, proposes to send unvaccinated workers into our long-term care facilities, and hospitals with children who are fighting cancer, with seniors who are clinging to life, and expose them to COVID and the flu and measles. It is incomprehensible. It is unforgivable. . .it is problematic and wrong, it’s a betrayal,” Eby said. 

Eby and Health Minister Josie Osborne refused to acknowledge Armstrong’s party OneBC. Eby pointed the blame for anti-vaccine ideology on the BC Conservatives, Armstrong’s original party, and Osborne simply called them “the fourth party.”

Armstrong has been controversial in her first year as an MLA. She left the BC Conservatives to start a new party, which earned her a pay raise. She has been campaigning against First Nations’ rights and tabled an anti-transgender bill that was voted down for a first reading.