The Mayor of Quesnel says he’s not giving up on the proposed North-South interconnector after the Transportation Minister cancelled a meeting with them at the Union of BC Municipalities convention.
Ron Paull says it remains a top priority.
“I was disappointed but it gives me more drive to pursue this file. I campaigned on it, and I’m not alone. Council is behind me, the Quesnel and District Chamber of Commerce is behind me, Business Associations are behind us, so we’re going to forge ahead with this file.”
Paull says he hopes to get a meeting with the Minister in Victoria in the New Year, although he says nothing has been set up yet.
“We want to make sure that we have all of our information here and compiled into a professionally prepared business case before we make that appointment.”
Paull says that includes gathering from the region.
“We’ve written to every municipality and regional district in the north and the second part of our campaign will be to write letters to stakeholders that use Highway 97, not only through Quesnel, but through the entire province.”
Paull says it’s not just a Quesnel issue but a provincial issue.
He says he wants those that make the decisions in the room when they do get the meeting.
“If we can’t meet with the Minister, and I’m not satisfied with sitting down with Deputy Ministers and bureaucrats, In fact it would be great to have Premier Eby in the room as well when we bring this forward.”
The idea behind the interconnector is to get big trucks out of the downtown core for safety and air quality reasons, and also to allow trucks to move goods more freely and easily through Quesnel.
The last cost estimate for this project, in 2020, was around 320 million dollars.
