Five B.C. health construction contracts axed, including Burnaby Hospital’s new phase

VICTORIA – The B.C. government says construction contracts for five health-care projects have been cancelled, after depicting them as being “re-paced” in the February budget.

Infrastructure Minister Bowinn Ma said the projects were still part of the government’s capital plan, while the Opposition B.C. Conservatives said the cancellations represented a “betrayal.” 

The cancellations include contracts for the second phase of the Burnaby Hospital redevelopment, the Beedie Long-term Care Centre in Delta, as well as long-term care projects in Abbotsford, Chilliwack and Kelowna. Ma’s ministry confirmed on Thursday.

The government had previously confirmed two cancellations on Wednesday, in response to questions from the Conservatives.

“We can call them deferred, we can call them rescheduled,” Ma told reporters on Thursday. “The bottom line is that those projects were not ready to go.”

She added that their estimated budgets were coming well over projections and it was incumbent on government to work with project teams and health authorities to make sure tax dollars were being respected.

The sites were among nine projects that the government said in February were being slowed to get the province’s costs under control in light of a record-setting deficit projection of $13.3 billion. 

Ma said projects generally unfold over different phases, and the contracts being cancelled were agreements that health authorities had signed before the government’s decision to delay construction. 

“So, I understand why it would be disappointing for community members to hear that project that they were expecting to be delivered on a certain timeline is now delayed because additional work has to be done,” she said. “But I want to be very clear — these projects remain in our capital plan.”

Ma’s ministry said in a statement that the cancellations represent the most fiscally responsible way forward given the changes to the timelines of the projects, but the government remained committed to them.

Conservative Ian Paton, the legislature member for Delta South, said his community had raised just under $20 million for the proposed $180-million Beedie long-term care facility of 200 beds.

“This project is cancelled,” he said in the legislature on Wednesday. “This isn’t re-pacing, it’s betrayal. Why did this government promise long-term care to nearly 125,000 people in Delta, only to walk it back and abandon the seniors who trusted them?”

Paton said it was “embarrassing” for the government to have announced these projects, only to say they have since become too expensive.

“What farmer would be building a barn, knowing that he doesn’t have enough to complete the project?” 

Brennan Day, the Conservative critic for rural and seniors health, said in the legislature on Thursday that B.C. faces a shortage of long-term care beds, but instead of investing more, the government was cancelling projects.

He cited the latest report from Office of the Seniors Advocate, which says the average wait time for long-term care has grown to 287 days from 144.

Health Minister Josie Osborne acknowledged that wait times were unacceptable, and the government was working with “urgency on seniors’ care.” 

Osborne said earlier this week that 7,829 British Columbians were wait-listed for long-term care.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 30, 2026.