Frankly Speaking

Justin Trudeau is following in his father's footsteps after Monday's federal election - emerging with a minority government in his second election after the Trudeaumania wave disappeared. Canada emerged very divided from the election on Monday, and the first act of the three national party leaders after the results were in did not bode well for future co-operation. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke in Montreal just after Conservative leader Andrew Scheer began to speak in Regina. Scheer took to the stage while NDP leader Jagmeet Singh was winding up his remarks in Burnaby. The Liberals won a minority government, with 157 seats. Most of those seats are concentrated in the Toronto and Montreal areas, and in the Atlantic provinces. They were shut out in Saskatchewan and Alberta, and their B.C. presence is concentrated around Vancouver. They have no B.C. seats outside Metro Vancouver. The Conservatives have 121 seats, including ...

Delta MP Carla Qualtrough was one of the five Liberal MPs elected in the 2015 federal election in Surrey and Delta. All but one of those wins came in ridings where the Liberals have had a hard time being competitive for decades. The broken promise on electoral reform may hurt their re-election chances, as in all five ridings they won, the winning Liberal candidates took significant numbers of votes from the NDP. The federal Liberal government pulled the plug on electoral reform last week – and the fallout in Surrey and Delta may not be fully noticed until the next election in 2019. Four of the six local MPs commented after the about-face by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. They said the reversal was disappointing, but not completely surprising, given the magnitude of the task and the lack of consensus about a new system. Conservative MP Dianne Watts took the opportunity to tease her Liberal opponents (five of the six local seats are held by Liberals), saying “that was a prom...

The year ahead will be a pivotal one in Surrey, Delta, Langley and White Rock. The area will keep growing at a steady pace. A recent survey conducted by B.C. Business magazine shows that Surrey is the seventh-best place for work in B.C., while Delta was rated eighth. Both are well ahead of Vancouver, which came in 17 th . Growth in Surrey, in particular, has been very strong for most of the past decade, with much of the business activity due to construction in the residential sector. Strong population growth is likely to continue in 2016. And of course, when there are more people, there is a need for more services. That means there are opportunities for new businesses, and a need for more public investment. Schools are needed, and construction of new schools and additions will go ahead in the coming year. There is also a need for more road and transit infrastructure. The defeat of the TransLink referendum this past year was a setback for extension of rapid transit in Surre...