BC NDP plan lowers costs, strengthens health care, builds the big projects Surrey needs

SURREY – BC NDP Leader David Eby spent the day in Surrey outlining his vision for the fast-growing city’s future. His plan will lower the cost of gas and groceries, strengthen health care, and get the big projects Surrey needs built–like new SkyTrain expansions and hospital infrastructure.

“Surrey will soon be B.C.’s biggest city, and it’s at the heart of my vision for our province’s future. Building a stronger British Columbia starts right here,” said Eby. “Our plan is fully costed, so I can tell people in Surrey exactly what we’ll build. Mr. Doerkson can’t. He wants to ‘review’ the infrastructure budget, and he won’t say what gets cut.”

Under the BC NDP, Surrey has received $12 billion in major projects, more than any other community. Those projects include the new Surrey hospital in Cloverdale, the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain, and the SFU Surrey medical school. All three are already under construction, and all three are funded through the infrastructure budget that BC Conservative Leader Lorne Doerkson wants to review.

Doerkson already promised to cancel the Massey Tunnel replacement, which is already underway and start over with a bridge. That would put hundreds out of work, sacrifice $3 billion in federal funding and leave commuters waiting even longer.

“A growing city like Surrey needs a government that will build and hire – not a one that will cancel and fire,” said Eby. “People here have seen that movie before. It means deep cuts, higher costs, and chaos at the worst possible time.”

Eby pointed to the record of the last conservative government. It tolled the Port Mann Bridge and left kids in overcrowded classrooms. And they sold the land for the second hospital in Surrey below its appraised value to a well-connected campaign donor.

Eby also warned that Doerkson's agenda includes a secret deal with personal injury lawyers that would double car insurance, and billions of dollars in backdoor cuts to health care.
“We’ve got a lot more work to do together. We can’t afford to go back to the days where people in Surrey bear the brunt of cuts and higher costs,” Eby concluded.

David Eby’s vision for a stronger, more livable Surrey includes:

• Getting big projects done: A fully costed plan to complete the new hospital, the SkyTrain extension to Langley, and the new medical school. A re-elected BC NDP will also work with the mayor and council to build a SkyTrain extension to Newton and use the land offered by the city to build a new health care facility.
• Lowering the cost of getting around: Taking on big oil and suspending a portion of the gas tax to save people up to 30 cents a litre on gas. Per tank, that’s savings of as much as $20 for families for $116 of diesel for trucks. A re-elected BC NDP will also cap car insurance rates for another three years and offer free transit passes to low-income seniors.
• Strengthening health care: Launching an accelerated "bridging to practice" training program to fast-track qualified international medical graduates living in B.C. into family medicine, committing to 3 new primary care clinics in Surrey, and aggressively recruiting health care professionals and doctors from the U.S.
• Getting homes built faster: Accelerate housing development by bringing in a new 30-day permit guarantee for small residential builds, standardizing technical codes province-wide, and partnering with the federal government to reduce development cost charges by up to 50%.
• Giving Surrey the tools to deliver: A Surrey charter with the same kind of authority Vancouver has. This gives local leaders more power to make faster decisions on housing, transit, and community services tailored to Surrey's growing population.