Letter To The Editor — Re: Highway 1 through Chase moves ahead

To the Editor;

Call it “highway robbery.”

When the B.C. government recently announced the next phase of the Trans-Canada Highway widening, it left out one small detail.

Actually, a big one: Widening a 3.3-kilometre section of this highway through Chase will cost taxpayers $61 million more than original estimates. And that’s on top of cost overruns of $150 million for phase one.

This is the kind of wasteful and irresponsible spending that PCA, CLAC and so many other B.C. construction organizations have warned about.

Yet the John Horgan government has been unwavering in its decision to funnel major public projects, like this one, exclusively to the Building Trades Unions, no matter how high the public cost.

At a time when every tax dollar should count to help B.C. businesses, workers and families recover from COVID-19, the bloated cost of this highway widening is a blatant reminder of a government that’s out of touch.

Paul de Jong,

President of the Progressive Contractors Association of Canada (PCA)