The BC NDP’s 2021 Budget capital plan allocates $1.66 billion to build a new hospital in Surrey, a promise the BC Liberals abandoned when their government sold off the original planned site. (Budget 2021 Link)

“Today our BC NDP government is putting up money to get a second hospital built and make it easier for people in Surrey to get good healthcare,” said Surrey-Cloverdale MLA Mike Starchuk. “With a new hospital in Cloverdale, people in the community will no longer have to worry about how far away help is.”

In 2014, the BC Liberal government sold public land near Highway 10 and 152nd St in Surrey. The BC NDP had acquired the site in the 1990s, intending it as the site for a second Surrey hospital.

“The BC Liberals decided they’d rather sell off good public land to donors than deliver the hospital people in Surrey needed then and still need today,” said Starchuk.

Gordon Campbell held a campaign event on the property in 2005, promising to build the hospital. The BC Liberals broke that promise with the sale of the land in 2014 for $3 million below market value to Fairborne Lands. Christopher Philips, the company’s owner, later donated $25,000 to the BC Liberals.

The BC NDP government acquired new land for the hospital in 2019 beside the Kwantlen Polytechnic University campus at 5500 180 St in Cloverdale.