SURREY — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stopped into Surrey City Hall Tuesday afternoon for a 40-minute one-on-one with Mayor Linda Hepner.
The stop came before he attended the Globe 2016 Vancouver sustainability conference this week.
Hepner said she talked LRT, transportation and sustainability with the Liberal prime minister.
“He likes rail,” Hepner said.
“I talked to him about the decade of good-paying jobs that that project would bring to the Lower Mainland.”
Trudeau didn’t discuss financial specifics, but indicated they would come in the budget.
Hepner talked up Surrey’s biofuel facility that’s under construction in Port Kells, the Eco-Newton site in the works and Surrey’s forthcoming Sustainability Charter “2.0.”
Hepner said she mostly focused on areas where national strategies align with Surrey’s, such as a centre for clean tech innovation in the works between KPU, SFU and Foresight Cleantech.
“We had a really good conversation around sustainability and the work that Surrey’s done to advance it’s charter, and the next iteration of what that will look like around social, economic and environmental sustainability. We had a big to a conversation about that three-legged stool and how important each of those legs are,” said Hepner.
She described Trudeau as “dynamic” and “a great listener.”
At the Globe Conference this week, which Trudeau was set to open on Wednesday morning, Hepner hopes Surrey’s successes in the realm on sustainability will be front and centre.
In February, for the second year in a row, the City of Surrey was named one of the Top 7 Intelligent Communities by the New York-based think tank Intelligent Community Forum.
Hepner said the timing is perfect.
“I expect they’ll want to know, how did we get into that top seven? So there will be a discussion about how important collaboration is and partnership… how we saw success of Innovation Boulevard so quickly and our partnerships with the biofuel facility,” the mayor said.
“I think all of that will come up, as well as what other cities around the world are going.”
