The Government of BC committed $10 million to help professional community counselling agencies in BC to deliver and expand low-cost therapeutic counselling in the communities they serve.

Requirements included having an existing counselling program, using the funding for subsidizing the work of registered / certified professional counsellors (not practicum students), and having demonstrated the ability to scale their services more broadly.

Instead, they provided the funding to groups that did not meet any of these requirements, selecting groups instead that would help them attract voting support in the next election. This narrowcasting of the recipients did a disservice to the many agencies that now have to increase their minimum rate to the most marginalized of society. This is not right. Hundreds will suffer, and some may even die from preventable suicide, overdose, or exposure as a result of this decision.