Monday might be a holiday for most British Columbians, but the leaders of the province’s two front-running political parties didn’t take the day off.
BC Conservative Leader John Rustad was in Surrey where he laid out the party’s last major policy plank before the October 19 vote: a promise to build a new children’s hospital.
“There is a desperate need for more services. Surrey is a city for too long that has been treated as a second-class city, and that needs to come to an end,” Rustad said.
“We need to be thinking not only of what needs to be done today but what needs to be done for the future.”
Rustad said Surrey Memorial Hospital currently treats an estimated 50,000 children per year, but was built with a capacity to treat just 20,000. He said up to 1,000 children every year are forced to travel outside of Fraser Health to get the services they need.
He said the new facility would include a pediatric emergency room and pediatric ICU, along with a maternity ward and women’s health centre.
Rustad was unable to estimate what the hospital would cost, save to say that it would be “quite an expensive project” but worth the “significant investment.”
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Rustad also said the Conservatives would release their long-awaited costed platform on Tuesday, five days before election day. The party has faced criticism on the campaign trail for delays in releasing the document after a series of spending announcements that did not include cost estimates.
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BC NDP Leader David Eby was also in Surrey on Monday, where he attacked the BC Conservatives over their plan to end ICBC’s monopoly on auto insurance and to end no-fault insurance for serious injuries.
Eby touted his government’s changes to the province’s auto insurance system, which he said have reduced the average driver’s premiums by $500.
“We’ve also been able to return multiple rebates to British Columbians, most recently a $110 dollar rebate, and unlike other things in life, rates for ICBC are guaranteed to be flat for the next two years,” Eby said.
Eby said inviting private insurance companies into the B.C. market will result in higher costs for drivers.
He challenged voters skeptical of that claim to call family members in Alberta and Ontario to ask them what they pay to insure their vehicles.
BC Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau had no public events scheduled on Monday.
Monday’s campaigning came as pollster The Angus Reid Institute released its latest survey, which showed the BC NDP ahead of the BC Conservatives by five points as the race enters the home stretch.
The poll pegged NDP support at 45 per cent, Conservative support at 40 per cent and Green support at 12 per cent among decided and leaning voters and people who had already cast a ballot.
It found the NDP leading 56 per cent to 31 per cent for the Conservatives in Vancouver and Burnaby, 49 per cent to 36 per cent in Richmond and Surrey, 46 per cent to 44 per cent in northeastern Metro Vancouver and the Tri Cities, and 44 per cent to 36 per cent on Vancouver Island and the North Coast.
The poll found the Conservatives leading the NDP 50 per cent to 34 per cent in the Interior and 48 per cent to 42 per cent in the Fraser Valley.
The poll also found that healthcare had risen to the number one election issue, overtaking inflation and the cost of living which have been the top priority for more than a year.
Angus Reid Institute president Shachi Kurl said that shift could benefit the NDP in the election’s final days.
“Even though there is a tremendous amount of dissatisfaction with the NDP over their performance over the last seven years on things like managing the economy, creating jobs and also housing affordability and managing cost of living, on healthcare, Eby and the NDP are seen to have that advantage,” she said.
“You combine that with the fact that HC is now taking on added importance to B.C. voters, and that is a little bit of movement.”
The poll found the NDP had a slight advantage on addressing the cost of housing, while the Conservatives were seen as the best equipped to improve people’s financial wellbeing and improve safety in respondents’ communities.
The Angus Reid Institute Poll was conducted online between Oct. 9 and Oct. 13, among 2,863 adult British Columbians who are members of Angus Reid Forum. For comparison purposes only, a probability sample of this size would carry a margin of error of +/- 1.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.