VANCOUVER -- BC NDP Leader John Horgan spent his Sunday trying to sway voters in the riding of Green Leader Sonia Furstenau.

Horgan spoke to media and some members of the public in Vancouver Island’s Cowichan Valley, greeting people with a bump of the elbow and taking time to throw a football with a young boy. His main message was to drum up his party’s record on health care, including the NDP’s cancelling of MSP premiums back in January, and the promise of a new Cowichan hospital.

“I’m so proud to say that the business plan is complete and that a larger – three times larger – facility is going to be breaking ground next year,” Horgan said.

Furstenau was also campaign on Vancouver Island and hit back, starting her address to media later in the day by giving “a little bit of background” on the history of the project. She said Health Minister Adrian Dix had come to Cowichan in 2018 to announce the new hospital would be going forward, and Horgan was trying scare voters.

“For too long in politics in B.C., communities have either been treated as something to be taken for granted or treated as a community that won’t get those critical infrastructure announcements because they didn’t vote the right way,” she said, calling on both Horgan and Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson to not “politicize facilities.”

Wilkinson didn’t hold any public events Sunday, but on Saturday touted his medical background

Horgan is trying to win an NDP majority in the legislature, one of his main reasons for calling the election early. But if voters reinstate the NDP minority, which has relied on the Green Party for support, Horgan and Furstenau will have to find a way to work together. When asked if he could make it work, Horgan answered: “If the public sends back a similar configuration to the legislature, I’ll continue to work as hard as I can to cooperate and collaborate with people.”