Conservative Party of BC Leader Lorne Doerkson has unveiled a seniors platform promising to reverse the NDP’s changes to the property-tax deferment program, build more long-term-care beds, and expand home care so seniors can age in place.
Announced in Coquitlam on October 9, the plan would reverse the NDP’s property-tax deferment changes so seniors can stay in their homes, according to the party release. Doerkson also vowed to build more long-term-care beds by cutting what he called unnecessary design rules that have driven up costs, with portable public funding giving seniors waiting for a bed a choice among qualified providers.
For seniors who want to stay in their own homes, the platform adopts the BC Seniors Advocate’s recommendation to expand consumer-directed, publicly funded home care. The Conservatives would also grow HandyDART where demand is greatest, provide free shingles vaccination, help seniors on low fixed incomes afford hearing aids, and impose tougher penalties for senior abuse and fraud.
“Seniors spent their lives building British Columbia, and they have earned the right to stay in their homes and get the care they need close to the people they love,” Doerkson said in the release.
The platform matters in Surrey, where the senior population is growing fast and multigenerational South Asian households often care for aging parents at home. Expanded home care and HandyDART service directly affect families trying to keep elders close.
The release also claims 7,200 people are waiting for a long-term-care bed, that the NDP shelved seven care projects, and that Budget 2026 raised income taxes on every British Columbian. Those figures are the party’s own claims and have not been independently verified.
(Source: Conservative Party of BC release, October 9, 2026)
