SURREY, B.C. - Premier David Eby spent Thursday in Surrey setting out the BC NDP’s vision for the city, pointing to $12 billion in major projects the party says Surrey has received under its government, more than any other community in British Columbia.
The three projects the party names, the new Surrey hospital in Cloverdale, the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension and the Simon Fraser University Surrey medical school, are all already under construction. The NDP says all three are funded through the infrastructure budget that Conservative Leader Lorne Doerkson wants to review.
“Surrey will soon be B.C.’s biggest city, and it’s at the heart of my vision for our province’s future,” Eby said, adding that building a stronger British Columbia starts in Surrey.
The party’s plan, which it describes as fully costed, would complete the Cloverdale hospital, the SkyTrain extension to Langley and the medical school. It would also work with Surrey’s mayor and council to build a SkyTrain extension to Newton, and use land offered by the city for a new health care facility.
On everyday costs, the NDP would suspend a portion of the provincial gas tax, which the party says would save drivers up to 30 cents a litre, cap car insurance rates for another three years, and give free transit passes to low-income seniors across the province.
The health care planks include an accelerated “bridging to practice” program to fast-track qualified international medical graduates in B.C. into family medicine, three new primary care clinics in Surrey, and recruiting health professionals and doctors from the United States.
The plan also promises a new 30-day permit guarantee for small residential builds, standardized technical codes province-wide, a partnership with the federal government to reduce development cost charges by up to 50 per cent, and a Surrey charter giving the city authority like Vancouver’s over housing, transit and community services decisions.
The NDP says Doerkson has promised to cancel the Massey Tunnel replacement project, which is already underway, and start over with a bridge. The party claims doing so would put hundreds of people out of work, sacrifice $3 billion in federal funding and leave commuters waiting longer for a crossing.
“Our plan is fully costed, so I can tell people in Surrey exactly what we’ll build. Mr. Doerkson can’t,” Eby said.
Eby also pointed to the record of the last conservative government in B.C., citing the tolled Port Mann Bridge, overcrowded classrooms and the sale of the land for Surrey’s second hospital below its appraised value, and he warned of what he called backdoor health-care cuts under a Conservative government.
The Conservatives also released a Surrey plan on Thursday, promising a SkyTrain extension to Newton, a new 10-lane George Massey Bridge, completion of the Cloverdale hospital and a new women and children’s hospital in Surrey.
Source: BC NDP news release, October 22, 2026
