New B.C. Liberal leader attacks NDP for increasing unaffordability

VICTORIA — Minutes after being sworn as leader of the official Opposition Monday, Kevin Falcon signalled he's already got his sights set on the 2024 election, saying if elected premier he'd cancel the $1 billion “vanity museum project.”

During his first performance in question period, the Liberal leader said it was “tone deaf” and “outrageous” for Premier John Horgan to announce a new provincial museum when one in five British Columbians are without a family doctor and many are struggling to pay the rising prices for gas, rent and groceries.

Horgan on Friday unveiled a plan to shutter the 54-yearold Royal B.C. Museum on Sept. 6.

It will be torn down and rebuilt by 2030.

The $1-billion price tag includes $789 million for the new museum plus $224 million already announced for the museum's new archives and collection building in suburban Victoria.

The money would be better spent, Falcon said, on giving motorists a three-month tax break on record gas prices which he estimated would cost $500 million.

“I spent some time up at the pumps talking to people that were filling up their cars and I think the premier needs to spend a few minutes frankly doing that because he's completely out of touch with how people are feeling,” Falcon told reporters.

On Monday, Horgan again ruled out cutting the 8.5 cents a litre provincial excise tax but said the government has spent $1.3 billion giving ICBC customers an average of $500 per driver in rebates.

Horgan justified the museum replacement expenditure by pointing out that the existing building is not seismically safe and that artifacts and archival materials are in a building that is below sea level.

The museum has been “ignored by governments for the past 20 years ... (and) something needed to be done to protect and preserve our collective history,” he said during question period.

Falcon is confident that by the time the 2024 election rolls around, construction on the new museum will not have started, so it won't be a hit to taxpayers to scrap the plan.