Medical care is hours away in B.C. Why do people in Fort Liard, N.W.T., have to drive to Yellowknife?
CBC
In Fort Liard, N.W.T., residents are hopeful the next territorial government can address health care issues that plague the community — including one very particular to the community.
Fort Liard has a small health centre and an occasional doctor, but residents need to leave town for any serious medical treatment.
It is only a two-and-a-half hour drive to Fort Nelson, B.C., which has a hospital. But instead, Fort Liard residents are required to go to Yellowknife, a 10-hour drive, or fly to Edmonton.
Resident Rose Betthale-Reid says the state of health care is bad across the N.W.T., but her community is in a unique situation.
"Fort Liard's got the worst of it, because we're right close to B.C. border and we're far away from Yellowknife," she said.
This hasn't always been the case. Before COVID-19 there was an agreement between the B.C. and the N.W.T. governments to allow Fort Liard residents to access medical care in Fort Nelson.
But when borders closed, so did the agreement — and it hasn't been restored.
Fort Liard, pop. 500, is one of six communities in the riding of Nahendeh, and one of only two connected by a road year-round, the other being Jean Marie River. The riding stretches from Fort Liard in the territory's southwest corner to Wrigley in the North.
Six candidates are running for the Nahendeh seat, including incumbent Shane Thompson and challengers Sharon Allen, Josh Campbell, Mavis Cli-Michaud, Hillary Deneron and Les Wright.
When CBC News asked each candidate to name their biggest issue for Fort Liard, two of them brought up the Fort Nelson hospital.
Thompson, who was in Fort Liard on Tuesday, said an agreement with B.C. was in place during the 18th assembly, his first term as an MLA, and he hopes to establish it again.
Deneron, the lone candidate who's from Fort Liard, also said access to health care in B.C. would be a top priority.
"They had a formal agreement to have health care for Fort Liard residents within B.C., definitely to get that back on track," she said.
But Deneron said that's not the only health care issue affecting the community.
The Rachel Notley government's consumer carbon tax wound up becoming a weapon the UCP wielded to drum the Alberta NDP out of office. But that levy-and-repayment program, and the wide-ranging "climate leadership plan" around it, also stood as the NDP's boldest, provincial-reputation-altering move in their single-term tenure.