Rustad promises costed platform Tuesday, Surrey children’s hospital if elected

BC Conservatives Leader John Rustad says his party’s costed platform will be released Tuesday.

Rustad confirmed the publication date after speaking in Surrey Monday for another health-care campaign announcement.

He says, if elected, his party would commit to building a new children’s hospital in the city as part of his “Patients First” model.

It would include a new pediatric emergency room, maternity ward, women’s health centre, and neonatal intensive care unit.

The new Surrey Children’s Hospital would also include the first pediatric intensive care unit in the Fraser Health region.

The BC Conservatives have selected an 18-acre site near the intersection of the Fraser Highway and 164 Street. The Surrey site is city-owned and will be adjacent to the future Bakerview SkyTrain station and Surrey Rec Centre, the party says, thereby “reducing the need for families to cross Metro Vancouver for pediatric care.”

“Nearly 45 per cent of all children in B.C. live here,” said Rustad in Surrey.

“They live in the Fraser area. A region, of course, that is continually growing. That’s why a dedicated pediatric hospital is critical for the area that’s in here.”

With five days to go before the final election date, the BC Conservatives have yet to release a fully costed platform, detailing how the party intends to pay for the hospital — among many other promises.

When asked Monday when the platform would be made public and why it has taken so long, Rustad said it was a campaign strategy to ensure that the party could make new announcements every day of the campaign period.

“We’d be making, you know, one, two, three announcements every day in terms of our platform — driving the good news about what the Conservative Party will deliver for the people in British Columbia. And so what you should see tomorrow is the release of the platform is we have now got the bulk of the information out,” said Rustad, adding that there would be “a few more little things” of interest in the completed platform.

On Saturday, the BC NDP said it was responsible for a parody social media post that showed B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad promising to bring back McDonald’s McRib sandwiches.

The post appeared Sunday evening as an NDP news release under a Conservative Party of B.C. logo with the headline, “John Rustad Unveils Plan to Bring Back the McRib.”

An NDP spokesman who declined to be publicly named said in a statement, “This news release is a joke to make fun of John Rustad repeatedly announcing things he cannot do, with no plan and no opportunity for media to ask questions.”

—With files from The Canadian Press