ZYTARUK: SkyTrain extension named after Dave Barrett, of course
Published 3:27 pm Tuesday, September 15, 2026
As a cub reporter decades ago I covered an NDP night rally at a pizza hall in PoCo where Dave Barrett, a former NDP premier, was holding court. During his speech he rolled up a copy of the Globe and Mail newspaper and made like he was wiping his undercarriage with it.
A classy act.
This past March, Surrey Councillor Linda Annis suggested that a SkyTrain station be named after former mayor Doug McCallum, a rival politician.
After all, expanding the SkyTrain Expo Line from King George Station east into Langley was a key plank in his Safe Surrey Coalition’s successful election campaign in 2018.
If anyone deserves the honour, it’s him. Can anyone deny this expansion was McCallum’s baby?
And yet, he declined, explaining that the decision to move forward with the project wasn’t about any one individual but rather “about the long-term interests of Surrey residents.” There was dignity in his response.
Let’s harken back to Barrett, a Coquitlam MLA who was B.C.’s premier from 1972 to 1975 and whose big claim to fame was bringing us ICBC. Yay.
On September 15, the provincial NDP government announced it would name not just a station but the entire 16-kilometre Surrey-Langley SkyTrain line the Dave Barrett Extension.
Why? “Dave Barrett spent his life fighting for ordinary people,” our current NDP Premier David Eby started in a press release.
Undoubtedly Barrett did, as have many before and after him.
Not to mention, he’s an NDP icon…
Construction of the Expo line was conceived in 1985 to celebrate the legacy of Expo 86. Not on Barrett’s watch. And which former NDP premier Mike Harcourt opposed.
My intention is not to deny Barrett his legacy but rather to point out the NDP’s penchant to glorify its own as witnessed by this latest move, and naming the Site C dam on the Peace River the John Horgan Dam and Generating Station despite Horgan having opposed the project before relenting.
My point is that whereas McCallum decided the SkyTrain expansion wasn’t about him, the NDP decided it’s about them.
The term vainglorious comes to mind.
What’s next? Renaming the Douglas border crossing (aka Peace Arch crossing) the Tommy Douglas border crossing?
Call them Tommy Douglas Firs instead?
How about changing Whistler’s name to Svend?
Jug Island to Jagmeet Island?
Maybe correct Surrey’s name to “Eby City?”
Goodness jeepers, make every parent in B.C. name their first-born Karl?
Could it happen?
You be the judge.