Frankly Speaking

One of these six individuals will be the new BC Liberal party leader, as of Saturday night. From left to right, (top) are Dianne Watts, Andrew Wilkinson and Michael Lee; (bottom) Sam Sullivan, Todd Stone, Mike de Jong. (Montage by CBC) Members of the BC Liberal party are casting their ballots over the next few days to choose a new leader of the opposition. That very phrase must gall many of them, after the party enjoyed 16 straight years in power under premiers Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark. However, that’s where they find themselves right now, and based on the most recent public opinion poll which came out Jan. 19, they could be there after the next election as well. The NDP were well ahead of them in that poll, 40 per cent to 31 per cent (the Green Party came in at 19 per cent) conducted by Insights West. The new Liberal leader will be determined by a ranked ballot, and membership sign-ups actually will play a diminished role in the final selection of the leader. Eac...

When the BC Liberal government under then-premier Gordon Campbell decided to replace the original Port Mann Bridge (pictured) and upgrade Highway 1 between Vancouver and Langley, it failed to see how unfair it was to only charge bridge users a toll to pay for the entire project. That inequity has been rectified by their successors, the new NDP government under Premier John Horgan. Stephen Rees photo On Friday, Premier John Horgan announced that tolls would be removed from the Port Mann Bridge and the Golden Ears Bridge, effective Sept. 1. This fulfills a key election promise made by the NDP – one that likely made the difference between winning and losing the provincial election. They picked up four seats in North Surrey and Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows (and a fifth one in North Delta). There is no doubt that the pledge to remove the tolls was a key factor in some voters switching their loyalty from the BC Liberals to the NDP in all those ridings. (The importance of this pr...

Politics in Langley is always interesting. Most people who follow politics are more engaged in local or provincial politics, but in the past 18 months, there has been plenty of interest in the Ottawa political scene as well. It began in the run-up to the last federal election, which took place on Oct.19, 2015. This was the first federal election ever held on a fixed date. Until then, the timing of an election had solely been at the prerogative of the prime minister. Most tried to use it to their political advantage. B.C. was the first jurisdiction in Canada to establish the fixed election date system, after Gordon Campbell became premier in 2001. As has become obvious here, fixed-date elections mean there is a longer period of campaigning. This was certainly the case with the federal election. There was a much longer formal campaign period – almost three months. This was the longest formal campaign since the 1800s. Prime Minister Stephen Harper of the ruling Conservatives ...

Ministry of Transportation rendering An artist's rendering shows the new Deas Island bridge. If it opens in 2022 as promised, without a proper road pricing or fair tolling system in place, residents South of the Fraser will be even more unfairly impacted by tolls. The provincial government should get its ducks in a row. That means it needs to have a clear and fair tolling policy in place before opening yet another toll bridge between the South Fraser region and the rest of Metro Vancouver. Wednesday’s announcement that a new 10-lane bridge will replace the Massey Tunnel, and that it will be tolled, is another reminder of how hypocritical and discriminatory the government’s current tolling policy is. Work on the new bridge will begin in 2017, and it is expected to open by 2022. Currently, there are just two tolled bridges in B.C. One is the new Port Mann Bridge, built and operated by the province through the Transportation Investment Corporation (TReO). The other is the...

B.C. Government photo The W.R. Bennett Bridge over Okanagan Lake at Kelowna is one of the few reminders of the 11-year reign of Bill Bennett as B.C. premier, from 1975-86. He died in Kelowna on Thursday at the age of 83. Bill Bennett, premier of B.C. from 1975 to 1986, died on Thursday after years of battling Alzheimer's disease. He was one of the most significant premiers of the 20th century in B.C., and he, along with his NDP predecessor Dave Barrett, brought B.C. into the modern era. Bill Bennett was a reluctant politician, at least at first. He was recruited in 1973 to run for the seat his father W.A.C. Bennett, B.C. premier for 20 years, vacated after losing to Barrett in the 1972 provincial election. The South Okanagan seat was a Social Credit bastion, but even before he said he would seek the seat, Bennett was under terrific pressure to take over as Social Credit leader. He had no political experience and had shown little interest in politics until that time. Bill B...

Two significant infrastructure improvements opened in the past two weeks, and unlike the usual changes to transportation corridors, these ones directly benefit pedestrians and cyclists. Cyclists and pedestrians can now use a multi-use pathway over the new Port Mann Bridge. It opened on Wednesday, July 1. This pathway was promised way back when the BC Liberal government, under then-premier Gordon Campbell and then-transportation minister Kevin Falcon, announced plans for the new bridge and Highway 1 improvements, under what was called the Gateway program. That announcement was made in January 2005, prior to the provincial election. The three-metre wide barrier-separated path connects to United Boulevard and Lougheed Highway on the Coquitlam side, and to 112 Avenue in Surrey via a new path along the top of Johnston Hill on the north side of Highway 1. The path has been much-delayed, largely due to the complicated overpass and access structure on the Coquitlam si...