VANCOUVER—As the federal election campaign ramps up, political parties continue to court British Columbia voters. Political observers have said the province is no longer an afterthought when it comes to election campaigning, especially this time around with B.C. acting as ground zero for two key election issues: the Trans Mountain pipeline and SNC-Lavalin affair.

Here are five election promises that Canada’s party leaders have made in the last week that you may want to keep an eye on.

Traffic congestion

Conservative party Leader Andrew Scheer said he would support a widening of the George Massey Tunnel, which connects Richmond to Delta in Metro Vancouver. The promise is part of the Conservative party leader’s pledge to prioritize federal funding on projects that he says will decrease traffic congestion for Canadians. The nearly 60-year-old George Massey tunnel has long been a bottleneck for commuters travelling to and from the Fraser Valley and the previous B.C. Liberal government had promised to replace the tunnel with a crossing that had more lanes. Public consultation for the project is scheduled to take place in the fall, according to the B.C. government website. Current replacement options for the George Massey tunnel include doubling the number of lanes for the crossing, from four to eight. Some urban planners say widening roads leads to more car traffic and congestion.

Gun control

The Liberals are promising an additional $50 million over five years to combat gun-related violence. The government currently allocates $100 million per year to this issue. Party leader Justin Trudeau already promised a ban on assault-style firearms earlier in the campaign and said he would allow municipalities to ban handguns if they wished. In response, Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart said he would be keen to institute such a ban, making that statement early last week shortly after a string of shootings in the Downtown Eastside. Two more shootings occurred in Vancouver early Sunday morning. The Conservatives said they would instead implement harsher punishments for offenders convicted of violent gun-related or gang-related crimes and also crack down on gun smugglers.

Housing affordability

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said a federal government under his leadership would spend $20 million to create a RCMP unit dedicated to fight money laundering. Half of that funding would go directly to B.C., he said, acknowledging that money laundering has played a role in pushing the cost of housing out of reach of many Canadians, especially in B.C. Singh also said he would replicate some of B.C.’s attempts to lower speculation and money laundering in the real estate sector in other parts of the country, such as establishing a foreign buyers tax and a ownership beneficiary registry so that property ownership cannot be hidden behind numbered companies. Singh made this announcement during the seven consecutive days he spent campaigning in B.C. in late September.

Trees versus pipeline

In a news conference last week where Liberal party Leader Justin Trudeau arrived via canoe, he promised a Liberal government would plant two billion trees in the next 10 years as part of its plan to fight climate change. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who is running for re-election in Burnaby-South — the suburb where the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project will end — then sent out a news release with these words: “You. Bought. A. Pipeline.” He also tweeted this response to Trudeau’s tree-planting promise: “Trees won’t hide the pipeline you bought.” He has said that a NDP government would not force a pipeline onto provinces if they did not want it. Green Leader Elizabeth May has repeatedly said that she while she is unlikely to become prime minister, she would “kill” the Trans Mountain pipeline if given the chance. The pipeline issue is particularly salient in Metro Vancouver, where the political observers say the Liberals need to hang on to the seats they gained in 2015 and where the government’s purchase of the pipeline is a divisive issue. Trudeau said he would re-invest revenue from the Trans Mountain into planting trees and other climate-change related policies.

SNC-Lavalin

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer promised that if elected, he would launch a judicial review into the SNC-Lavalin affair, which saw Vancouver MP and former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould removed from the Liberal party. Scheer said he would also pass legislature that would prevent politicians like Trudeau from using cabinet confidentiality to “escape police investigation.” Trudeau partially waived cabinet confidentiality so that Wilson-Raybould could testify before a House of Commons committee about her version of events during the SNC-Lavalin affair. During that testimony, Wilson-Raybould said Trudeau and others in the PMO pressured her to halt criminal prosecution against the Quebec-based company. Wilson-Raybould is running for re-election in Vancouver-Centre as an independent.

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With files from Melanie Green, Jeremy Nuttall, Alex Boutilier, Tonda MacCharles, The Canadian Press

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