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Why the BC NDP and Conservatives are making so many election promises to Surrey

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From the Newton SkyTrain extension to building Surrey’s third hospital, the BC NDP and the Conservative Party of British Columbia have directed a steady stream of major platform promises at Surrey in the provincial election campaign’s final weeks and days.

On Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026, voters across the province will head to the polls to select the MLA for their provincial riding. This will help determine which provincial party forms the next provincial government and who becomes the next premier.

Just ahead of the main voting day, on Thursday, Oct. 22, both parties issued announcements focused on winning Surrey ridings, summarizing their competing commitments made throughout the campaign period.

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The results of the previous provincial election two years ago help explain the fierce attention on Surrey. Surrey-named ridings, including Surrey-White Rock, account for 10 of the 93 provincial electoral districts across B.C.

In the October 2024 provincial election, the Conservatives, under then-party leader John Rustad, won six of the 10 Surrey-area constituencies, including Surrey-White Rock, while the BC NDP won four. Six ridings were decided by fewer than 1,000 votes. The closest was Surrey-Guildford, where the BC NDP’s Garry Begg prevailed by the slimmest of margins — just 22 votes — helping the party reach the 47 seats needed for a majority in the 93-seat legislature in Victoria.

Surrey also played an important role in the BC NDP’s return to leading the provincial government following the May 2017 provincial election, with John Horgan’s BC NDP and Andrew Weaver’s Green Party of British Columbia joining forces to create their own minority government by toppling Christy Clark’s weeks-old BC Liberal minority government shortly after that election.

Four years earlier, in the May 2013 provincial election, Clark’s BC Liberals had won five of the Surrey area’s eight seats, while the BC NDP held Surrey-Newton, Surrey-Green Timbers, and Surrey-Whalley.

Under the revised riding boundaries in the 2017 provincial election, the BC NDP expanded to six of the nine Surrey-area seats, winning Surrey-Fleetwood, Surrey-Panorama, and Surrey-Guildford. Those gains helped John Horgan form a minority government, along with maintaining Green support. Horgan’s promise to eliminate tolls on the Port Mann Bridge and Golden Ears Bridge and scrap planned tolls on any future new crossing project to replace the George Massey Tunnel helped bolster the party’s support in Surrey during the 2017 provincial election. The party removed the existing bridge tolls shortly after taking office.

In the 2020 provincial election, the BC NDP won Surrey-Cloverdale, taking seven of nine seats as Horgan secured a majority government.

Now, both major parties are making another heightened push for Surrey voters in the 2026 provincial election.

Healthcare is among their biggest priorities, given the well-documented operational challenges at Surrey’s only hospital, Surrey Memorial Hospital, in keeping up with demand driven by the South of Fraser’s rapid population growth and specific demographic needs. The new hospital platform promises made by both parties are supplemental to Surrey’s future second hospital — the new Cloverdale hospital and cancer centre, which is currently under construction at a cost of $2.9 billion and set to reach completion in 2030.

Conservative leader Lorne Doerkson promised to build Surrey’s third hospital as a women’s and children’s hospital. The Conservative platform sets aside an estimated $25 million during its first term to secure a site, develop a concept, and complete the detailed planning and financial assessment. A construction budget would follow. The platform does not promise that the hospital would open within that first term.

Surrey mayor-elect Doug McCallum and his Safe Surrey Coalition supermajority in the incoming Surrey City Council have promised to set aside City-owned land on King George Boulevard in Newton for a new hospital project by the provincial government.

The BC NDP’s commitment is less specific about the type of healthcare facility. David Eby has promised to work with Surrey’s municipal government on building another unspecified healthcare facility if the City provides land. The BC NDP did not identify it as a full-service hospital.

However, the BC NDP promised to open three more urgent and primary care centres in Surrey and make further improvements at Surrey Memorial Hospital. It also reaffirmed its plan to build a new purpose-built building in Surrey City Centre for Simon Fraser University’s (SFU) medical school, which is expected to cost $520 million. Construction is expected to begin in late 2026, with completion in 2030, at which point the medical school — training new generations of much-needed doctors and nurses — will stop using its current temporary facilities at SFU Surrey.

Major transportation infrastructure projects have also produced some fierce competition between the two parties.

Earlier this week, the Conservatives promised to work with the federal government to fund and build an extension of SkyTrain’s Expo Line along King George Boulevard from Surrey City Centre to Newton Town Centre. On the same day, the BC NDP also announced its support for building such an extension, fulfilling a key platform promise made by Surrey mayor-elect McCallum during the civic election campaign that ended last week.

McCallum subsequently favoured the Conservatives’ explicit commitment to build the Newton SkyTrain extension, asserting the BC NDP had only expressed a willingness to discuss the project. The mayor-elect also appeared at a Conservative campaign rally on Thursday in Surrey, where he formally endorsed Doerkson’s party.

The week before, the BC NDP had initially promised to set aside $250 million in provincial funding for TransLink’s proposed $700-million King George Boulevard Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line between Surrey City Centre and Semiahmoo Town Centre in South Surrey. Its subsequent platform announcement asserts that money could be redirected to help advance a Newton SkyTrain extension instead.

For road infrastructure, the Conservatives have proposed reviving the 10-lane George Massey Bridge project concept created by the previous BC Liberal-led provincial government. It would replace the BC NDP’s current plan to build a new eight-lane immersed tunnel to replace the aging George Massey Tunnel. Although the new crossing directly connects Delta and Richmond, the party has included it in its Surrey pitch because of its importance to commuters and goods movement in the South of Fraser, including for residents and businesses in the western areas of Surrey.

The Conservative platform proposes repurposing the estimated $8.5 billion currently allocated to the BC NDP’s immersed tunnel project and asking the federal government to transfer its announced contribution of up to $3 billion to the alternative bridge concept. That federal transfer would still need to be approved by Prime Minister Mark Carney’s administration.

Doerkson’s party asserts that a bridge could be built faster, at a lower cost, and with less risk than an immersed tunnel. Moreover, the Conservatives’ 10-lane crossing would provide more capacity than the BC NDP’s eight-lane concept.

Currently, early works and site preparation for the new immersed tunnel are well underway in advance of the start of major construction work sometime in 2027. Eby subsequently asserted that the Conservative party’s approach would result in further delays and costs in delivering a new seismically safe replacement crossing that provides more capacity and congestion relief, suggesting that the immersed tunnel project has passed the point of no return in its planning.

However, in order for major construction activities to begin in 2027, the provincial government’s environmental assessment process needs to reach completion, which is now expected by late 2026 — behind the review’s original schedule for completion by late 2024 or 2025. That review process first began in 2021, when the BC NDP administration first confirmed it would proceed with an immersed tunnel project.

Additionally, this past summer, Eby’s administration fired the original European private consortium selected in 2024 to design, build, and partially finance the new immersed tunnel, with this dismissal driven at least partly by cost. The provincial government has now restarted the bidding process under a new procurement model that splits the immersed tunnel project’s work into five smaller contracts.

Over the years, the BC NDP has come under fire for cancelling the original 10-lane bridge project to replace the George Massey Tunnel. At the time of the project’s cancellation in 2017, shortly after the BC NDP came to power, the project was months away from a contract award — with a low bid coming in at $2.6 billion, which was $900 million below the B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Transit’s estimate of $3.5 billion — and the start of major construction work. At the time, about $100 million in design, planning, early works, and site preparation had already been completed for the 10-lane bridge concept, which would have opened in 2022.

When the BC NDP first announced their decision in 2021 to proceed with planning an eight-lane immersed tunnel, the project’s cost was pegged at $4.15 billion — excluding the scope of the very extensive highway, bus infrastructure, and interchange improvements the previous 10-lane bridge project included.

Additionally, Surrey’s horse racing industry has also entered the provincial campaign.

Shortly after last week’s civic election, Surrey mayor-elect McCallum said the Conservatives had committed to provincial support for rebuilding the horse racing facilities at Fraser Downs at the Cloverdale Fairgrounds in an effort to restore full racing events. McCallum separately outlined how his municipal government would aim to rebuild those facilities in time for a fall 2027 restart of horse racing at the fairgrounds. Last year, the City of Surrey terminated the lease for horse racing operations at Fraser Downs, and subsequently demolished the facilities.

Aside from capital investments, the BC NDP has promised to provide the City of Surrey with new municipal governing powers and exemptions.

Eby has promised to create provincial legislation to provide Surrey’s municipal government with its own municipal charter — a “Surrey Charter,” similar to the Vancouver Charter for the City of Vancouver. This would give the City of Surrey greater flexibility over taxation, housing, transportation, infrastructure, and community services. Currently, Surrey and other municipal governments across the province — except for Vancouver — fall under the provincial Community Charter and B.C. Local Government Act.

For schools, given Surrey’s capacity crunch and growing dependence on portable structures, the BC NDP has promised to work with the Iqra Education Society and the City of Surrey to help establish a new Muslim high school. The party later clarified that it would support the independent school’s efforts but would stop short of providing public funding.

Public safety is another major focus, given Surrey’s major issues with gang and extortion-related crimes.

The Conservatives proposed specialized extortion investigators, clearer reporting and protection arrangements for threatened families and businesses, and measures to prevent gang recruitment. Their package also includes a dedicated court process for repeat offenders, stronger bail and warrant enforcement, and expanded electronic monitoring. These measures accompany a province-wide pledge to hire 1,000 additional police officers, prosecutors, and support staff.

The BC NDP’s competing public safety policies include 50 additional Crown prosecutors, a unit focused on extortion and gang violence, and doubled capacity for programs targeting repeat violent offenders and chronic property crime. It also proposes stronger efforts to seize gang assets, faster police recruitment, and a provincial retail-theft task force.

Additionally, throughout the campaign period, both parties made numerous province-wide platform promises at Surrey-held press conferences, relating to taxation, support for businesses and the economy, and ICBC insurance.

The concentration of promises reflects the stakes for both parties. The BC NDP needs to defend narrowly held seats and recover lost ground, while further Conservative gains could help deliver a provincial victory.

Once the election is over, the next provincial government will have to explain how and when it intends to deliver these major commitments. They need firm budgets, construction timelines, and agreements with the federal government in some cases, while mayor-elect McCallum’s incoming City Council will have its own promises to fulfil and a role in providing land and securing approvals.

Surrey has had no shortage of attention from party leaders during this campaign. Residents will likely have to wait much longer to see how much of that attention produces improvements for the city’s growing pains.

Ahead of the provincial election’s main voting day this Saturday, Oct. 24, 81,810 voters have already cast their ballots during advance voting across the 10 Surrey-named ridings, including Surrey-White Rock. Surrey-White Rock recorded the most advance voters in that group, with 13,557, followed by Surrey South with 9,727 and Surrey-Cloverdale with 9,296.

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