The mayor of British Columbia’s second biggest city says she’s “very disappointed” in the latest provincial budget.
“There was nothing there for Surrey,” Brenda Locke told Global News.
Surrey is home to a population of more than 680,000 and is on track to surpass Vancouver as B.C.’s biggest city within a decade.
That’s come with major growing pains, including a proliferation of portables at schools amid surging enrolment, overburdened hospital emergency rooms and bus routes that have seen ridership balloon to double pre-pandemic levels.
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Work is now underway on a second Surrey hospital, but amid the $4.5 billion earmarked for capital spending in the K-12 education system, the budget included no line items for new Surrey schools.
“Health care, education, public transit have been such a challenge for us and it is getting worse,” Locke said.
“We are going to hit a million people and there was no additional money for schools.”
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