Unions push back on Conservative pledge over Massey Tunnel project

B.C. Conservative Leader Lorne Doerkson said Thursday morning that, if his party forms government after the Oct. 24 election, it will build a 10-lane bridge to replace the Massey Tunnel. Several unions opposed the announcement. In a news release, Doerkson said British Columbia had stopped building after nine years of David Eby and the NDP, and blamed the NDP for cancelling a bridge that should already be open. He said Lower Mainland families are stuck in traffic every day and promised his government would build the bridge on time and on budget.

Bryan Railton, business manager of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 115, called Doerkson’s promise to scrap the replacement project “irresponsible” and said it should concern British Columbians. Railton said significant work had been underway for nine months, with more than 200 workers on site this year alone. The project had spent $581 million as of the latest posted monthly update in June. Trees have been cleared, utilities relocated and several pieces of temporary infrastructure built to support the project. An environmental assessment is imminent, and major construction is expected to begin in a matter of months.

“Promising to scrap this project and start all over again is reckless and wasteful,” Railton said. He added that if Doerkson is serious, the pledge shows a fundamental lack of understanding of procurement and construction for major infrastructure, and that this lack of knowledge could hurt British Columbians.

LIUNA Local 1611 called the decision “unconscionable.” Its business manager and secretary-treasurer, Nav Malhotra, said members had been working on the project for almost a year. Including highway corridor improvements that were also part of the tunnel program, he said, the work dates back several years. Malhotra said Doerkson was prepared to sink all of that work with one hasty announcement motivated by “anti-worker ideology,” not common sense.

The replacement project is being delivered under a Project Labour Agreement, which ensures workers have access to good wages and benefits while building public infrastructure. Earlier this year, B.C. Conservative MLA Kiel Giddens introduced a private member’s bill to end project labour agreements on public infrastructure; it was defeated. Malhotra said the Conservatives and their predecessors, alliances and spinoffs—the BC Liberals, BC United, CentreBC and OneBC—had routinely shown contempt and disrespect for working people. He said the union was aware of the party’s hostility toward organized labour, but was stunned it would waste $581 million in taxpayer money and disregard a $3-billion federal funding commitment to make a political point.

BC NDP Leader David Eby, speaking at an announcement in Surrey, said Doerkson’s pledge would halt construction underway and set the project back years. Eby said 200 workers were at the site beginning tunnel construction, and that drivers could see large metal structures going up. He said the Conservative leader had no plan and would cancel the work, send the workers home, and start from scratch with a new plan, environmental assessment, procurement process and contractors. Eby questioned whether drivers would be stranded for two years or longer.

Eby called the plan “lunacy” and said the federal government had committed $3 billion in financing to help pay for the project, which he said could be lost. He asked how long the project would take, how much it would cost, whether the federal funding would be lost and whether tolls would be imposed as in the original plan. Eby said those questions were not being asked because Doerkson was “in hiding.”