Premier Gordon Campbell is promising better transit for several communities across B.C. and expanded help for tourism, parks and sports.
Many of the projects have been announced before, but Campbell says the government wants to speed them up because they'd been more expensive to build in the long run.
He told the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention in Whistler the projects include extending SkyTrain through Surrey to Langley, fast tracking the Cariboo Connector highway project and other transit improvement in Chilliwack, Victoria, Kelowna, Prince George, Kamloops, Nanaimo and Courtenay.
He says the government will launch a new effort to attract tourists that will be unprecedented in its size and scope and will expand interpretive programs in provincial parks to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the B.C. parks system.
Campbell also says communities hosting future B.C. winter and summer games will get one million dollars to build sporting and cultural projects, while three totem poles will be erected on the lawns of the legislature to remember the Olympics.
On other issues, pine beetle action groups will each get one million dollars a year in extra funding and Campbell has once again expressed support for the Prosperity mine project near Williams Lake, despite strong opposition from native groups.
