Lorne Doerkson, the incoming B.C. premier, says the outgoing government should halt work on the Massey Tunnel replacement until his cabinet can finalize the project’s direction.
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Lorne Doerkson, B.C.’s premier-designate, is calling on the outgoing New Democrat government to halt work on the George Massey Tunnel replacement, arguing the project should be paused because it does not support switching to a bridge option he promised during the campaign.
In a statement, Doerkson said he is not asking for all construction to stop, and that necessary work should continue “until cabinet is in a position to finalize the project's direction.”
Doerkson said his incoming B.C. Conservative government believes a bridge represents the best value for taxpayers, and that it intends to conduct a review of the tunnel “and its alternatives.”
The premier-designate also said no new contracts or procurement decisions that would lock the province into a tunnel option should proceed, while adding that the new government would respect other contracts. “We should not be spending more money or making new commitments that lock British Columbians into the tunnel option before the incoming government has completed its review,” he said.
On the campaign trail, Doerkson committed to scrapping the $8.5-billion tunnel replacement in favour of a bridge. The bridge was originally announced under the B.C. Liberals in 2013.
The Massey Tunnel replacement has been a long-running political fault line between the NDP and rival parties. The late former premier John Horgan cancelled the Liberals’ bridge after taking office in 2017, then the project shifted toward a tunnel replacement in 2021.
Doerkson and the Conservatives won a sweeping majority in the Oct. 24 provincial election, winning about two-thirds of the seats in the legislature.
The federal government has previously pledged to cover a third of the cost of a replacement for the Fraser River crossing, to a maximum of $3 billion, and Ottawa’s Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon said after the B.C. election that it supports “crossing that river whatever way the premier tells us to.”
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