The B.C. Liberal Party is raising concerns over the provincial government's new Community Benefits Agreement, and the potential the Liberals say for it to add around $100 million to the cost of the Pattullo Bridge replacement project.

The agreement aims to prioritize the hiring of apprentices, women, Indigenous and local workers for major public infrastructure projects in the province, and it also requires that construction workers be unionized.

Workers will be required to join the Allied Infrastructure and Related Construction Council of B.C. within 30 days of being on the project worksite.

Under the labour deal with the council of unions, workers on the Pattullo Bridge replacement project will receive a two per cent pay increase every year until 2024.

B.C. Liberal Party labour critic John Martin argues the new agreement and the wage bump will cause cost overruns of up to seven percent for the $1.377 billion project.

Martin also objects to the government requiring workers to join a union.

"It's going to result in a greater expense to taxpayers, and even more troubling is there's a violation here of one's right to association," said Martin.

"Nobody should be forced to join a union, and under this new agreement, anyone in the trades that wants to work on a public sector project … they're either going to join a union or they're going to be sitting on the sidelines."

Government says costs are covered

Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Claire Trevena refutes claims the project will be over budget, and says the additional costs of labour were already built into the stated project costs.

Trevena also rebukes the notion that non-union contractors won't get opportunities to bid on public infrastructure projects.

"This is open to both union and non-union contractors. Anybody can bid on these projects. But, what we're looking at is ensuring everybody gets the opportunity to work, and that means that also everybody gets the opportunity for the benefits, the opportunity for equal pay," Trevena said.

She says these community benefit agreements have been used since the 1960s under W.A.C. Bennett in the hydro sector.

Besides the Pattullo Bridge, one of the other major projects to be delivered under the new Community Benefits Agreement will be the four-laning of the Trans-Canada Highway between Kamloops and Alberta.

The province says construction of the Patullo Bridge will begin in 2019 and will be complete in 2023.

With files from The Early Edition

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