Forgive me if I find John Horgan’s recent musings about a new Fraser River crossing a bit disingenuous.
Last week the premier suggested his NDP government could get going quite quickly on the project now that mayors and First Nations chiefs in the region have reached a consensus on what it should look like, fueling hope that a solution to the daily bottleneck at the now 60-year-old George Massey Tunnel isn’t as far away as some fear.
Yes, that was an encouraging bit of news, but exactly how serious is Horgan about quick action when his government is taking two years to study a situation that’s already been studied to death? His comments about another crossing were an off-the-cuff response to a question at an unrelated press conference, so it wasn’t like the premier was raising the issue on his own accord or, heaven forbid, actually announcing the government was doing something beyond just more study.
It’s a hopeful sign that he’s receptive to what regional politicians have proposed, but if he liked their idea so much why has he seemingly done nothing with it for the past two months? The mayors and chiefs sent Horgan a letter dated March 29 that advised him of the consensus they had reached and urged him to take action, a letter they made public a month later, presumably to apply some pressure given an underwhelming response from Victoria.
It’s more than a little ironic that the NDP, when in opposition, railed against the Liberals for not heeding local government input on the now-shelved 10-lane bridge project, but now that local government is in agreement, why isn’t that new crossing moving forward?
After the mayors and chiefs made their letter public, we figured that would expedite things, that a business case could be developed long before the fall of 2020, but a ministry response to our query kept to the original timeline.
I guess what I’m struggling with is the fact the NDP has maintained it would only build a crossing that meets with local government approval, but given it’s now got that, why must we wait another year-and-a-half for a plan to move this badly needed crossing forward?
Is it because the government isn’t keen to move quite as quickly as the premier wants us to believe?
