B.C. health-care projects cancelled as government tightens budget

VICTORIA — Construction contracts for two health-care projects that the B.C. government said were being “re-paced” when it tightened the budget in February have now been cancelled.

However, Infrastructure Minister Bowinn Ma says the Burnaby Hospital redevelopment and the Beedie Long-term Care Centre in Delta are still part of government’s capital plan.

The sites were among nine projects which the government said were being slowed or re-paced in order to get its costs under control in light of a record-setting deficit of $13.3 billion.

Ma says projects generally unfold over different phases, and the contracts being cancelled were agreements that the Fraser Health Authority had signed before the government’s decision to delay construction.