Quote:
Originally Posted by paradigm4
You guys are both being dicks. The NDP built the HOV network, expanded the PM by one lane and rebuilt the Lions Gate. The Libs built the Canada and Evergreen Lines.
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... And the NDP built the Island Highway and the Socreds (the Libs old daddy) started the Skytrain network and extended it to King George and drafted the original plans for extension into Coquitlam.
Speaking cynically, It's really about whose votes they are trying to buy, not their deep seeded ideology.
Liberals try to get votes from people in business and construction. So they hand out succulent contracts on large mega projects, boosting growth in the construction industry.
The NDP try to get votes from people in the public sector (and people who use the public sector). So they freeze tuition and hire more teachers. They pay nurses and doctors more. They build hospitals in small towns. They boost growth in public sector jobs.
Where they meet in the middle, in an attempt to get the average person's vote, is where good things usually happen.
The only reason the NDP built the Millennium line is to try to move towards the middle. The core of the NDP would rather have spent the money building schools or hiring bus drivers. But the average Joe didn't want to ride a bus. So they built the overbuilt, highly technological (for them) Skytrain line. Speak to a card carrying CCF member of the NDP and the skytrain is a disaster because it doesn't employ enough people. The capital resources would have been better spent on wages. But the centrists in the NDP built it because it would get them votes from people in the lower mainland (especially steal some construction worker votes). They built the highway on the island to reward voters for basically sweeping them into office (and what else could you actually do for the island, really). There is no way the NDP would have built the Canada Line as it is today, it probably would have been LRT down Arbutus instead.
On the other side, the Liberals have resisted slashing the public sector to keep middle ground votes. They haven't sold off BC Hydro or shut down ICBC. And they would have had they not lost so many middle voters after selling off BC Rail.
How does this tie in with the GMT? Well, if the Liberals weren't trying to win an election (where SOF is swinging away from liberals in both directions (NDP and Cons)) they probably wouldn't touch the GMT. It will meet a lot of opposition from elsewhere in the province. And there are easier, more profitable projects they could force ahead. The NDP wouldn't build it because Delta voters are swinging in their direction already, and the money could get them more votes by spending it elsewhere.