Good afternoon.

I'd like to acknowledge that I personally live on the unceded territories of the Lheidli T'enneh, where MP Doherty is from. Today I join you from the lands of the Coast Salish peoples—the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh.

It is an absolute privilege to be here with you today speaking on behalf of our members.

When you consider acts of violence as a cause of workers from all occupations taking time away from work, nurses represent 30% of total claims, the second-highest occupation behind nurse aides, orderlies and patient service associates. Between 2018 and 2022, nurses reported an average of 51 injuries per month caused by acts of violence in B.C. alone. The number of injuries reported over a four-year period between 2013 and 2017 rose by 49%, from 1,653 to 2,458. It's unacceptable.

BCNU represents approximately 48,000 members in the province of B.C.

You just have to turn on the news to see the increase in aggression in our society. Wait times in health care facilities due to circumstances outside of nurses' control are increasing, and incidents of violence are increasing along with them. Nurses working short-staffed, trying diligently to give the best care to their patients, are being targeted. They need to be protected. That is our job—your job and my job. We need to do this today.

Their families need them to return home safe. Can you imagine going home and not being able to hold your young child due to having been assaulted at work? Can you imagine a patient in a waiting room calling 911 to warn that a health care worker is about to get seriously injured, if not killed? This patient then proceeded to attack one of our male nurses and attempted to choke him out. The nurse who was attacked was working a shift his wife was supposed to work. Had he not been there, his month-long recovery could have looked so much different for somebody else.

What about the nurse in rural B.C. who, last January, entered a female patient's room and was attacked? Can you imagine being held over a chair, receiving punch after punch, with handfuls of your hair being pulled out, while waiting frantically for help to come from the RCMP? In many rural communities at night, there's only one RCMP officer on duty. That nurse was freed by another male patient, who assisted.

We hear horrifying stories. Many are so horrifying that I can't even tell them. The psychological impacts on our nurse victims and the colleagues who try to assist them last far beyond the physical trauma. This is costing our already crumbling health care system, as nurses are now dealing with their own mental health injuries and time off work, trying to heal. We are losing nurses from our system. This is the first time ever that B.C. is reporting empty seats in nursing programs. There's normally a wait-list to get into our programs, and we're not even filling our seats.

We have an obligation to protect those who are protecting others. We have an obligation to care for the caregivers.

I'm excited to be a part of this today. Thank you for having us here as the B.C. Nurses' Union. I look forward to answering any of your questions.

We fully support Bill C-321.

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