The NDP makes an ambitious promise

By Michelle Ghoussoub

The promises are still coming hard and fast. 

NDP Leader John Horgan made a campaign stop in Langley on Thursday morning, announcing that a re-elected NDP government would spend $1.5 billion to complete the Surrey to Langley SkyTrain route. 

Horgan said his party would make it a provincial project to “take the pressure” off municipalities, and that he’d work with the federal government to ensure it could be done. (Much more on what that means, and whether it’s even possible, from Justin McElroy further down in this newsletter.)

Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson, meanwhile, announced his plan for supporting small businesses struggling with the pandemic. He said a Liberal government would permanently eliminate the small business income tax in B.C., a two per cent tax that applies to every small business’s income. He said it would also reach out to the tourism and hospitality sectors to ensure bridge financing during the pandemic but provided few details of how those funds would be transferred.

The provincial leaders all crossed paths (virtually) for the first time on Thursday, participating in an online discussion hosted by the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade about the future of the business community.

The leaders mainly used the opportunity, in which they were interviewed individually but didn’t engage with each other, to rehash previously announced promises.

Horgan touted the NDP’s record during the early months of the pandemic, including grants to businesses and the loosening of liquor laws for restaurants. Wilkinson repeated his promise to eliminate the speculation tax and begin construction of a bridge to replace the Massey Tunnel. Meanwhile, Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau spoke of her party’s plan for universal childhood education and previously announced rental support for small businesses.

Those are all topics we’ve covered in this newsletter before. But the issue of moving to permanent daylight savings time, long a topic of discussion in B.C., has been noticeably absent from the campaign. Asked about it at the Board of Trade event, Horgan said he’s left the issue out of the campaign because he believes it’s key that B.C. stays in sync with its neighbor to the south  and that a change in Washington state would need congressional approval (and they’re a little busy down there at the moment).

Have you made debate night plans?

Tired: the US presidential election debate.

Wired: the B.C. election debate!

If you haven’t made debate night plans yet, here’s all the information you need. 

The B.C. leaders' provincial election debate is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 13 from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. PT and will be broadcast live.

The 90-minute televised debate will feature Furstenau, Horgan and Wilkinson. They'll face direct questions about current issues in B.C. and debate each other head to head.

We can’t guarantee that a fly will land on someone’s head, but it will be fun.

The transportation hot take 

By Justin McElroy

SkyTrain is coming to Langley!
 
Probably. Hopefully. 
 
Yes, the provincial election campaign took a turn Thursday morning into Metro Vancouver's favourite regional planning game: incremental changes to long-term transportation promises. 
 
"A re-elected NDP government will complete the Surrey to Langley SkyTrain line," said John Horgan in Langley City.
 
He pledged the government would take over the project from TransLink and fund the $1.5 billion to extend the line for the final nine kilometres from the east Surrey neighbourhood of Fleetwood to Langley.
 
Well. Sort of.   
 
"We want to make this a provincial project, so that takes the pressure off municipalities, it takes pressure off TransLink," he said. 
 
"We're going to fund it. The municipalities will have to find their share. I'll work with the federal government."
 
So to recap: this takes the pressure off municipalities. But municipalities will have to "find their share." Also, they will get money from the federal government.
 
I asked the NDP what would happen if the federal government and municipalities didn't provide their share of the money to fund the line — and the answer back was "we are confident that we can push the [federal government] to pay its fair share.
 
If you're left thinking it's not a 100 per cent promise to get the Langley extension built in the next four years, you'd be correct.
 
What *does* Horgan's promise do? Well, it certainly makes the odds of it happening higher. 
 
By making it a capital project, it takes the pressure off TransLink during a time when its finances are incredibly dicey. And by making it a big campaign promise, it puts full accountability on the government, making it a bigger embarrassment if it backs away from the project if the funding doesn't fully line up. 
 
Still, B.C.'s past is littered with transportation megaproject promises that ended up going nowhere. Skepticism is always warranted until the money is secured and the contracts are signed. 
 
But today's announcement helped — even if SkyTrain certainty is still further away than the commute from Vancouver to Langley during rush hour. 

That's it for us today. For the latest headlines, check cbc.ca/bc.