It’s Time to Invest in What Sustains Life, Not What Harms It

From heat domes and atmospheric rivers to wildfire seasons and prolonged drought, extreme weather is increasing in scale, frequency, and intensity. Emergency is the new normal.

Climate change is already harming our health. We are seeing rising respiratory illness, the spread of infectious disease, worsening food insecurity, deteriorating mental health, and more heat-related deaths. In communities near LNG, people are reporting elevated rates of serious illness linked to fracking. Without rapid emissions cuts, climate change could cost Canada’s health care system an additional $110 billion every year within the next 25 years.

If we keep responding to disaster by doubling down on a fossil fuel economy built on environmental destruction, driven by war, and harming our health, our health care system will collapse. We need to prioritize care, resilience, and a sustainable future that protects people and communities.

By investing in systems that sustain life, like public health care, instead of subsidizing harmful projects like LNG, we can take pressure off emergency services, save lives now, and create good, low-carbon jobs that move us away from fossil fuel dependence.

Home Support offers a clear example of how investing in health care can build climate resilience.

During the 2021 Heat Dome, 619 people died from heat-related causes in British Columbia. Many were typical Home Support clients: older adults living with chronic conditions, often alone. Sixty-seven percent were aged 70 or older, 73 percent died in private residences, 56 percent lived alone, and 91 percent were on the Ministry of Health’s Chronic Disease Registry.

These deaths were not inevitable. They were preventable.

Community health workers are uniquely positioned to prevent these tragedies. They have trusted relationships with clients, the training to assess risk, and the ability to coordinate care with other health care professionals.

After the Heat Dome, the BC Coroners Service made a clear recommendation: Home and Community Care must be integrated into emergency planning. But recommendations without resources puts these workers' lives at risk.

If we need CHW  to act as frontline responders in climate emergencies, we must resource them accordingly. That means real-time communication tools, cooled transportation, team-based care, and paid rest breaks. It means fully integrating care into emergency response systems.

And it means recognizing something more fundamental.

Investing in public health care is not just about responding to crisis. It is about building the economy we need.

Unlike boom-and-bust fossil fuel industries, health care is always needed, and these human-centered jobs cannot be easily automated or outsourced, creating stable employment that benefits local economies.

The federal government alone has provided an estimated $1.8 billion in public financing and infrastructure funding to the LNG industry, with no clear or measurable benefit to people in Canada. LNG has created only about 300 permanent jobs.

By comparison, the federal government contributes only $7.817 billion through the Canada Health Transfer to British Columbia’s health care system, which employs roughly 410,000 workers.

Instead of handing billions to fossil fuel corporations, Canada could expand Home Support and publicly funded, non-profit mental health care. These investments would save governments and employers money, put real dollars back into people’s pockets, and strengthen the economy. 

We cannot solve the climate crisis with the same short-sighted economic logic that created it. Strengthening health care is how we prepare for what is coming and build a sustainable, livable, and more just future.