Planned long term care centre in Delta remains in limbo

that long-term care facility that many had looked forward to in Delta. Well, it's put on hold right

now. The delay is so that there can be a review of the spending and that caused hundreds of people

to gather in Delta yesterday to demand the province restart construction on the long-term care

home that's being promised already. It was already signed off on and you can understand how people

really feel about that. In fact, one Delta resident speaking to reporters at yesterday's rally

expressed frustration at the delay in getting the center up and going. We have that.

I feel very upset because I know the longer they put it off, the more it's going to cost and the

more money we're going to then feel we have to start raising again. And no, we've been donors to

the foundation for over 10 years and they've worked very hard to raise this money to get this

facility built and it's very disheartening not knowing when it's ever going to happen.

Well, and there you go. It's not like the money is going to be costing less if you delay a project

and at this point you don't want to cancel it and you shouldn't cancel it. What do you do about

this? Let's bring a mayor of Delta, George Harvey. Good afternoon, George.

Oh, good afternoon to you too. I mean, this is kind of heartbreaking and I know it's just a delay

and a review, but you got to think that this is a bit of a slap of the face to those who live in Delta.

Oh, absolutely. This is really hard to imagine why they're doing this. And if I could just go back

a little bit and let you and explain to your good listeners and yourself with regards to the project.

So it was actually approved in June 2023 for 200 beds and what it was replacing is about 75

or 90 beds at a mountain view manner on site. It's been there for over 50 years. I walked through

it last Friday and it was just careful. I mean, for people to a bed with a thin curtain separating

the beds, there was no dignity for the people there. And now we had a great plan to be able to

move those residents into the new long-term care facility and add another hundred approximately

to go into the new long-term care facility. And what does the province do? They stop it.

But they're stopping it in midstream. I've never seen this before. Our staff at Delta

have been working with Fraser Health since March the last year to get the project permitted.

And since then, an issue that saw the deposit permit in May, a plumbing permit will offer on

site reconfiguration of sanitary storm and water, normal things that happen in construction.

And with the health authority scheduled to apply for a building permit in December this year.

And now it was all of a sudden it was unpause. Minister Maughan, I've talked to her,

along with other members of the hospital foundation just last week. She kept pointing out

the $1.8 million figure for beds. And you know, costs have come up. And so we were looking

after we in just this month that the project has gone up for bed up in bed prices to $1.8 million.

But since that time, Fraser Health has been working with staff at the hospital to find

how ways to get the bed costs down. And they've actually are very confident that they could land

at the 1.1 million mark. So why are they not allowing us to look at that during six months?

The preload has already gone in. It's still coming in. $15 million has been spent for all the

infrastructure beneath the ground layer. And we have six months. And as I mentioned in my speech,

that Davey, he needs to give us that six months to see if it can come up with a lower price.

And we know we can, but not to stop the project. Stopping the project means one of two things.

Either a delay, I would imagine, which is going to end up costing us more in the long run,

or killing it all together. What do you think is the likely direction in the eyes of the government

right now? I call it three words, pause, stop, and sabotage. That's what they're doing.

Now, this reminds me a little bit of another project in Delta. You probably know where I'm going

with us. Nothing to do with long-term care. But the massive tunnel, of course. It died.

It died completely. Well, it didn't now. But remember when we went through this initially,

when we could have had, by this point, a crossing to replace the massive tunnel. Do you see similarities

here? Well, when a question Minister Maul with regards to, you know, they have to do their fiscal

forecasting, I said, well, when is the fiscal forecasting going to allow us to actually build this

project? She couldn't answer. And I believe it's the same case with the tunnel. They don't have

the funding to go ahead. It's very obvious. And what does it think to do for self-of-the-frazer people

that have been traveling that for so many years in the congestion every day, usually? And sometimes

it's just an absolute nightmare with us. If there's an accent there, or a malex-frazer bridge,

or traffic has to be diverted to the tunnel. I mean, this whole thing is just unnecessary. But

what I can't understand, why the premier can't release the pause. And during the six months that

no construction will be happening because of the preload that has to settle, why doesn't he give

us that time to reassess? Because we're ready to do it. We've already started to do it with

Fraser Health. Now he's pulled those good people off the project. We're talking with Delta Mayor

George Harvey. And George, as you likely know, I grew up in Tawassen and spent the first 20 years

of my life in Delta as a Delta resident, so it's close to my heart. But when I hear about these

type of things, I also wonder if this is an example of what other communities around the province

may end up facing with their projects, whether it's long-term care, or something else that's already

being promised. Are you hearing from other mayors who may be concerned about these type of things?

Oh, absolutely. And I think we're going to give us a mayor's self-of-the-frazer, Mayor Locke,

Mayor Woodward, and the self-of-the-frazer has seemed to get penalized over and over and over

again. And one thing about Fraser Health is too big. It is just too big. You'd ever hear

the hospitals in Vancouver having emergency departments closed. Be sure to do so in the Fraser

Health area and other areas of the province, of course. That's also growing so quickly.

I mean, coastal health, they don't think has the same growth rate.

No, and close to health is part of Richmond's particle of health, and they've had their

long-term care project continue. And I can't understand why. They haven't even started

any construction on it, like we have. But you know what it goes down to, and I'm afraid to say this,

but I'm going to, anyways, is politics. We have never had an NDP MLA, as you know, in

self-delta, never one. And it seems to be the other areas that I've looked at. They

don't have any NDP MLAs. So is it, you know, well, and there's the old saying, I mean,

what you're hinting at and across my mind before we went on air here is, yeah, it's very simple.

You didn't vote the right way. And now you've got an NDP government in there and guess what?

I mean, that's very cynical, extremely cynical on my part, but that's my job.

Yeah, well, if you had the tunnel on that, what does it also say?

Well, there you go.

The other one you should know, too, is Mr. Mom made a comment with regards to the cities where

these projects are having excessive parking costs for that. But I want to let you know that delta,

in advance of knowing that this was going to be built, we extended our parking lot for over

a million dollars just two years ago. And that was to accommodate the addition of traffic and

people that are parking that need to go to Osbo, and also for the construction workers.

So we've done our job. We've got a million dollars invested in that to help this project

along the way to make it viable. Okay, where do you go from here?

We have to keep going and hammering away in so far as this is absolutely necessary.

I really want to challenge the provincial, the premier and also the minister's responsible

to let us have the six months to at least examine and see if we can get that for cost per bed down.

I know we can and let the project continue. We desperately need it.

Those people that are in mountain view manner, 64 to a room with a thin sheet, they're putting them,

that's they need their dignity back. Yeah, absolutely do. And that's a good way to look at it.

Unfortunately, it is about dignity and respect, not just numbers on a sheet. Mayor George Harvey,

thanks so much for your time. Well, thanks for your interest. And let's see if we get this done.

I really hope so. Seems like yesterday when we arrived here,

I am the story we know. You have all people know what secrets have done in this family.

Is just the beginning. We've been to the 90s. The 70s? Even the 1800s.

I think it was our last goodbye. So where will the pond take us next?

Where do you need to let me go? The hit hallmark original series.

The way home final season, Sundays only on W stream on Stack TV.