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A posse of NDPers is riding into Pitt Meadows on Friday ready to give all their ears to seniors and their concerns.
MLAs Selina Robinson, Judy Darcy, David Eby and George Heyman will be at the Pitt Meadows Seniors Activity Centre on Friday from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.
The four politicians are responsible for seniors, health, housing and transportation, respectively, and will be going to the first of what the NDP wants to be an around-the-province consultation process.
“We want to make sure we’re hearing from seniors around the province,” said Robinson.
“The four of us want to hear from seniors in the Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge area and their issues. We think it’s important that we hear from them and we don’t operate in silos.
“This is the first one we’re going to do as a group.”
Robinson said Pitt Meadows was the first location because the four MLAs are all nearby.
She’s expecting to hear seniors talk about health care, the ease of finding a family doctor, home support, transportation and TransLink. Some seniors are in the situation of being house rich and cash poor and can’t afford monthly property taxes or maintenance costs.
Robinson organized the meeting because she’s a spokesperson for seniors.
One topic that could come up is the expiration of federal subsidies for co-op housing, possibly putting at risk those who can’t afford market housing rates.
“We want to make sure we get a broad range of issues as we start this tour.”
MLAs need to push the federal government not to back out of coop housing assistance, she added.
Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows Liberal MLA Doug Bing said the province is working on the issue.
“It’s going to create issues if it’s not deal with, for sure.”
Robinson said Bing is invited.
“He’s more than welcome to join us to hear what seniors have to say.”
