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Bob Mackin

A task force set-up under the Liberal government to detect and deter foreign meddling in Canadian elections knew China was targeting the Conservative Party, but did nothing about it.

The Foreign Interference Commission, under Quebec judge Marie-Josee Hogue, heard April 3 in Ottawa that the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) task force withheld key information from the opposition party in 2021.

Foreign Interference Inquiry Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue (PIFI)

Ground zero was Steveston-Richmond East, where 2019-elected Conservative MP Kenny Chiu faced Liberal challenger Parm Bains. 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in search of majority power, called the snap election in the middle of August of 2021 in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic as Canada faced a mini cold war with China. Shaughnessy mansion-dwelling Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was fighting extradition to the U.S. while Canadian hostages Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor languished in Chinese jails. A mystery raged in Winnipeg about the two Chinese scientists fired from Canada’s highly secured virus laboratory. 

Chiu had gained the attention of Chinese Communist Party-friendly media on both sides of the Pacific earlier in the year. The supporter of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement voted to condemn China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims as a genocide. He also tabled a private member’s bill calling for a registry of anyone lobbying on behalf of a foreign government. 

Then came the nasty disinformation campaign against Chiu that culminated in his defeat and Bains’s victory on the Sept. 20 election day. 

“When I became a school board trustee [in 2011], I intentionally severed my ties with my relatives in China, with the understanding that I [being a politician in Canada] will put them in danger. In 2021, unfortunately, it seems like my worry has come true. But then I thought I would be protected by my country and I was deeply troubled, disappointed that I was exposed, and the government doesn’t seem to care,” Chiu testified.

“Now that, through the commission, I’ve learned that they’ve known all about it. It’s almost like I was drowning and they are watching. The best they could do, by the way, is to let me know that I’m drowning. I don’t need their notification, I need their help. So that’s the overall disappointment mixing with the emotion of anger that I have. And yes, I do not believe the way the Chinese Communist Party treating people in Hong Kong or even just general Chinese, let alone Uyghur Muslims, are right and justifiable. But I, by and large, I have focused on how I can propose my party, can propose a view, a way of how Canada can be governed better. And for that, I’ve been betrayed. That’s how I see it.”

Kenny Chiu on April 3, 2024 (Foreign Interference Commission)

“As a racialized Chinese-Canadian, for somebody who voiced up for the benefit of Canada, in the House of Commons, when I heard hurtful remarks, not just from any MP, but from the Prime Minister of Canada. When we asked about the Wuhan virus, when we asked why are we not shutting down flights from Wuhan in early 2020 — because of our constituents who are from China, asking us, why are we exposing Canada to that? So we asked that question in the House of Commons. The answer has always been, mindful of racism, don’t be an anti-Asian. To me, as an Asian-Canadian, it’s very insulting and for that, to come from the top leader of our country, it’s doubling injury with insults.”

Erin O’Toole led the Conservatives in the 2021 election and ran on a platform that included a stronger foreign policy in the face of a belligerent China under Xi Jinping. 

O’Toole told the inquiry that foreign interference cost his party as many as nine seats on election day, which led to the end of his leadership. He retired from politics last year. 

“I remember the last time I was in British Columbia during the campaign,” O’Toole told Hogue. “I thought about it because I was hearing from some of our organizers saying we’ve got to do something about this, this is out of control. I heard from Kenny and his team, just how targeted and everyone was tense, and people were fearful with the amount of misinformation in the Richmond seats. We were doing well at that point in the campaign, so, you’re consciously, you know, they say in politics don’t get off-message. So I would have thought that that might have seemed a little bit off-message and it might have contributed, if I started talking about foreign interference from China, the portrayals of me have being obsessed with China and mentioning it 31 times in the platform, these sorts of narratives, I might have been accidentally reinforcing that. Which is why I think some of these safeguards for our system need to be out of the hands of politicians who are in the midst of a campaign. We need structural and professional and independent, impartial organizations to determine safeguards to protect people’s franchise.”

Erin O’Toole on April 3, 2024 (Foreign Interference Commission)

“I wished I could have a do-over. What I certainly would have done is made sure that we had a much more sophisticated approach to WeChat in particular, but Mandarin and Cantonese advertising publications and campaign workers to counter what was a deluge of misinformation against us. We were just not prepared on that platform, period. You know, our social media strategies, and our policy development was all still primarily focused at traditional media, and what you might call Silicon Valley platforms like Facebook and Twitter and things like this. We did not have the capacity to really even understand what was going on WeChat…

“Folks within the government knew that there was a level of foreign interference occurring and I think we owe it to the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Canadians that it was targeted at, we owed it to them to learn them, and to perhaps give them alternative sources for unbiased news or the ability to report instances of intimidation. One vote matters in our democracy, and I think we have to do a little bit more particularly for the Chinese-Canadian population, but also some other diaspora organizations, to make sure that they’re not being intimidated to exercise their full rights here.”

Jenny Kwan was seeking her third term in 2021 in one of the NDP’s safest seats, Vancouver East. But a Chinatown leader, Fred Kwok of the Chinese Benevolent Association, promoted the Liberal candidate, charity lawyer and former Paralympian Josh Vander Vies.

Kwok even advertised a free lunch at the Floata banquet hall in Chinatown to help Vander Vies get attention. 

Kwan and the NDP complained to Elections Canada and the Office of the Commissioner of Canada Elections (OCCE) over the apparent vote-buying attempt by a representative of a well-known pro-Beijing organization. 

Fast forward to March 2024. OCCE issued a $500 fine to Christopher Richardson, an accountant on the Vander Vies campaign, for failing to report that the lunch was paid for by a contributor as a non-monetary contribution, not as an election expense, on the Candidate’s Electoral Campaign Return. 

Jenny Kwan on April 3, 2024 (Foreign Interference Commission)

Unlike Chiu, Kwan was returned to Ottawa. But she told the commission she was disappointed by the outcome of the investigation. 

“You have multiple government agencies, who have a bit of the ingredients. Let’s put an analogy that I can understand, of baking a cake. Everybody has a little bit of the ingredients here and there and multiple agencies, the RCMP, CSIS, OCCE, this [SITE] task force, for example, they all have it. Then when you want to bake the cake, you want to make sure all the ingredients mixed well together in the order in which it should be to produce the product,” Kwan testified. 

“But that didn’t happen here. Instead, what’s happened is that you have a half-baked product, because everybody owned their own ingredients, and threw it in whenever they felt like it and that doesn’t make any sense at all. So that’s a failure of the system. And then when you have all the tools to follow, to try and get the product, you think that you use all the tools. 

“But it seemed to me that OCCE did not use all the tools because they did not compel the restaurant to produce the receipt and to follow the cost to verify the amount of that free lunch event. So it’s a failure of a system to me, I’m deeply disappointed about it. The worst thing for me about all of this is, aside from my complaint itself, set that aside for a minute, is what message is being sent to public.

“We look at government agencies, and they are supposed to instil confidence and trust and faith in the hearts and minds of the public. We rely on them to do the very work to investigate and to verify and to ensure that the law is being followed. But I think that in this instance, the investigation failed in that and in relation to foreign interference. The message here is that if in fact there was foreign interference that took place in this free lunch event, the message sent to them is you can get away with it. That is the message and that is not helpful.”

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Bob Mackin A task force set-up under the

Business, News

Bob Mackin 

The Sunshine Coast city debating a name change just got a bigger problem on its hands. 

The builder of City of Powell River’s 2023-completed sewage treatment plant filed a lawsuit April 2 against city hall for more than $1.4 million owing on two contracts and it wants a judge to declare a $19.37 million lien against the project.

Powell River wastewater treatment plant (Graham Construction)

Lawyers for Graham Infrastructure filed the breach of contract and negligence claim in B.C. Supreme Court in Powell River, naming the city, contractor Associated Engineering (B.C.) Ltd. and subcontractors Koers and Associates Engineering Ltd. and WSP Canada Inc. as defendants. Graham also seeks general and special damages, interest and costs. 

Graham’s court filing said the Powell River Consolidated Wastewater Treatment Plant was hindered by incomplete designs and excessive changes, extra work, delays and unpaid invoices. The allegations have not been tested in court. The defendants are expected to respond within the next three weeks. 

The sewage treatment project was originally estimated in early 2018 to cost $30 million. The project budget more than doubled and, in 2019, the federal and B.C. governments combined for a $55.73 million grant. The price tag ballooned to $100 million last year.

The contentious 2021 request from the Tla’amin First Nation to change the city of 14,000’s name has overshadowed the sewage plant overruns. Namesake Israel Wood Powell, B.C.’s first superintendent of Indian affairs from 1872 to 1889, was known as a proponent of Indian residential schools and opponent of the potlatch ceremony.

The Graham court filing said the city hired Associated Engineering in October 2017 to design the plant on city land. Three years later, in October 2020, the city contracted Associated for project management and construction administration. In turn, Associated subcontracted Koers and WSP, and issued invitations to tender for the plant construction in December 2020 and the conveyance lines and associated linear works in June 2021. 

Graham was the successful bidder on both and signed contracts in June and September 2021, totalling $61 million. It agreed to supply labour, equipment, and materials to construct the project in accordance with Associated-prepared designs and specifications.

The lawsuit said that Graham relied on Associated’s “express or implied representations” that the tendering documents “reflected the best information that Associated could provide” about the project, including all relevant geotechnical and archaeological information. Graham said the tendering documents also said the lands were capable of open excavation to seven metres below ground and that no further geotechnical investigation was required to assess the ability to excavate till soil.  

Graham’s lawsuit said it began the work “with the reasonable assumptions that the projects were each fully-designed, constructible, and ready to be built. However, the design for the projects was not sufficiently developed, leading to significant changes to the scope of Graham’s work on the projects.”

The city issued change orders “in the first instance liberally and with impunity, requiring Graham to undertake an excessive volume of changed or additional work without advanced agreement on the appropriate adjustment” to the contract price or time. 

“In further breach of its contractual duty of good faith and honest performance, the city knowingly misled Graham by making repeated assurances to Graham that it would be treated fairly in respect of compensation for the [changes] and encouraging Graham to proceed with the changed work on the basis of those assurances in circumstances in which there was no advanced agreement on the total amount to be paid for directed changes,” Graham claimed.

The lawsuit was filed just 11 days after Metro Vancouver revealed that the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant in North Vancouver would cost $3.86 billion to complete by 2030 — 10 years later and more than $3.1 billion higher than originally budgeted. 

Metro Vancouver fired the sewage plant’s original designer and builder Acciona in early 2022. The Spanish company sued for $250 million and Metro Vancouver responded with a $500 million countersuit.

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Bob Mackin  The Sunshine Coast city debating a

Business, News

Avril Scherzer 

A leaked memo from a Metro Vancouver board member is proposing a solution for the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant cost overruns.

Artist’s rendering of branding for the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant (submitted)

Metro Vancouver shocked ratepayers March 22 when it announced the North Vancouver megaproject would cost $3.86 billion to complete by 2030. The original contractor, Acciona, was hired in 2017 for $525 million with a deadline of 2020. 

Electoral Area B director Salvatore DeBain said in the document, tabled at a March 15 in camera meeting, that he had been approached by private investors who provided him a business plan to build a casino and music venue at the plant at no extra cost. 

The proposed Royal Flush Casino would have 100 tables and 50 slot machines and the Purex Theatre would hold up to 2,000 people. Both would be contained within an additional floor at the state-of-the-art facility to be built for $100 million by foreign investors. The business plan contains artist’s renderings of exterior branding on the plant. 

“The project’s deficit could be wiped away within five years by reducing the burden on ratepayers with profits from craps and other gaming revenue,” said the 10-page document. “The title sponsorship of a cultural venue by a well-known national toilet paper brand would not only contribute to wiping away the deficit, but it would attract international recording artists who otherwise have no such venue of its size and scope in North or West Vancouver.”

The business plan said investors are in advanced talks with B.C. Lottery Corporation and the NDP government regarding regulatory matters for the proposed casino.  

“This kind of private/public partnership is a win-win-win,” DeBain’s memo to other directors concluded. “Let’s open the lid to innovative financing.”

DeBain is holding a news conference to reveal more details just before noon on April 1, outside the construction site at the foot of Pemberton Avenue. 

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Avril Scherzer  A leaked memo from a Metro

Business, Miscellany, News, Opinion, Sports, Uncategorized

For the week of March 31, 2024:

Peter Menzies, senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, says protecting children is a legitimate goal of the Trudeau Liberal government’s Online Harms Bill. But Bill C-63 is otherwise flawed.

Peter Menzies (MLI)

The former publisher and editor of the Calgary Herald and former vice-chair of the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission is Bob Mackin’s guest on this edition of thePodcast. 

Menzies said Canada’s existing hate speech laws are sufficient, but Bill C-63 could harm free speech. Criminal Code amendments to clamp down on perceived hate speech are “over the top” and the proposed Digital Safety Commission would have too much power and be flooded with complaints about hurt feelings. 

“As little as 10 years ago, even less, everybody was praising the wonderful democratizing power of the Internet,” Menzies said. “So what you have going on right now is a little bit of a ‘tech-lash,’ and I think governments are, in some cases, the actions are appropriate, but in some cases, they are overreacting.”

Hear the full interview. Plus, the Sin Bin and this week’s Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines. 

CLICK BELOW to listen or go to TuneIn, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Podcasts.

Have you missed an edition of theBreaker.news Podcast? Go to the archive.

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For the week of March 31, 2024: Peter

Business, News

Bob Mackin

B.C.’s Deputy Premier was already scheduled to visit Lynn Valley on March 26, to rally the troops for North Vancouver-Seymour NDP MLA Susie Chant’s re-election campaign. 

Someone in the government communications department thought it would be a good opportunity for him to promote the month-old, election year budget.

Mike Farnworth faced criticism from North Shore social service agency reps on March 26 in Lynn Valley (Susie Chant/X)

A dozen representatives of local social services agencies came to meet him at the Lynn Valley Legion. Not one wearing NDP orange pom-poms. 

First to speak was Don Peters, the longtime chair of the North Shore Community Resource Society’s Community Housing Action Committee. He described his agency’s mood as “grim.”

“Frankly, there are no affordable rents on the North Shore, certainly not at shelter rates,” Peters said. 

“Many callers to the agency are desperate in these times of soaring rents and normally zero vacancies, and we fear for the plight of increasing numbers of near-homeless North Shore renters,” Peters said. “More often than not, seniors.”

Peters pointed to West Vancouver council’s rejection of proposed protections for Ambleside corridor apartment renters last November. A watered-down version passed at the end of February and there is no guarantee it will help seniors stave-off real estate tycoons looking to transform the area for a younger clientele. 

Peters also pointed at Victoria and Ottawa for doing too little, too late. 

“Despite another flurry of federal and provincial housing interventions and announcements, we feel real housing relief is years away,” he said. 

Farnworth repeated the NDP talking point about restricting Airbnb in order to free up inventory. He said he realized the housing crunch is a national problem, while talking to a cab driver en route to an airport.

“He explained to me how Montreal had a reputation as being affordable, not anymore. We hear the same thing in Toronto, in Calgary and Alberta, they’re talking about,” he said. “It is frustrating because we’re making a lot of changes, that will benefit as you said in the long the longer term. And it’s the short term right now that I think is the big challenge.”

B.C. Solicitor General Mike Farnworth (Mackin)

One attendee said she noticed an uptick in abused women choosing to stay with their abusive husbands or return to them, “purely because they can’t get housing.”

“It’s very, very horrific, it’s not for the faint of heart. These women are choosing to stay in those situations, because the only other option is to be homeless.”

Another said the $10-a-day childcare rollout “hasn’t gone that well” for parents with special needs children, who additional red tape and costs. 

Farnworth offered more platitudes. But no solutions. 

“Housing is for people, housing is for families. Housing is not, in essence, a commodity. Housing is for people and it’s for communities,” he said.

“If you have that stable base, then you’re able to maintain the social network, you’re able to access the services that you require.” 

Last to speak was Deborah Buxton, 70. The former NDP party worker lost her job as a family support worker, became homeless in January 2022 and lived in her car for a year. 

“I just can’t work like I used to, I would be willing to, I just can’t,” said Buxton. “I got health issues like most people my age.”

Hollyburn Family Services found her shelter in the Lu’ma Native Housing Society-managed Travelodge near Marine and Capilano. Tenants at the facility, mostly people with addictions and mental illnesses, are being evicted at the end of May, to make way for condo tower construction.

“So I don’t know what the government can do. I just don’t think they’re going to be able to help.”

The hour came to an end. Farnworth did more listening than selling the NDP’s election year budget. He briefly seemed overwhelmed. “Whatever ideas you’ve got, bring them to the table. Because, what we’ve seen up until now clearly has not worked in terms of making sure there’s housing.”

As for that invitation to media, only Global BC cameraman Pat Bell and this reporter showed up. After one of the attendees expressed reservations about appearing on the TV news, Farnworth admitted he was unaware of the invitation. 

“I’m surprised as well,” he said. 

* * *

And another thing…

Farnworth was also unaware of a sombre local anniversary.

Memorial bench near Lynn Valley Library (Mackin)

He was scheduled to join Chant and her supporters later for a round of door knocking before a round of drinks at Brown’s Social Pub near the Lynn Valley library.

It happened to be the eve of the third anniversary of the deadly stabbing rampage in Lynn Valley Village square. 

Farnworth admitted to this reporter that his staff did not brief him about that. 

On March 27, 2021, drifter Yannick Bandaogo randomly killed a woman and injured several others. Last summer, he pleaded guilty to second degree murder and attempting to murder five other people. A B.C. Supreme Court judge sent him to jail for at least 15 years. 

Five days before that awful afternoon, an amateur photographer captured images of an apparently homeless Bandaogo sleeping behind the building that houses Chant’s office.

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Bob Mackin B.C.'s Deputy Premier was already scheduled

Business, News

Bob Mackin 

Good luck, Metro Vancouver, you’re going to need it. 

North Vancouver’s MP, the Liberal natural resources minister, said March 26 that Ottawa would not bail out the $3.86 billion North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant. 

In March 2017, Jonathan Wilkinson announced a $212 million federal grant to the facility, when it was budgeted at $700 million and expected to open in 2020.

On March 22, the regional district’s commissioner, Jerry Dobrovolny, announced the new price tag is $3.1 billion higher and the plant is expected to open a decade late, in 2030. He also said Metro Vancouver would return to senior governments to help ease the regional tax burden.

“It would be a very challenging thing for the province or the federal government to say that we are going to contribute to cost overruns in one case, because you would not be able to say we’re going do that for North Vancouver, we’re not doing it for Halifax or we’re not doing it for Regina,” Wilkinson said after announcing a $490 million contract for North Vancouver’s Seaspan to build new coast guard vessels. 

“So, at the end of the day, the region is going to have to find a pathway through which to manage the incremental costs. I don’t think that they should be looking to the province or the federal government for additional funds.”

B.C. Deputy Premier Mike Farnworth was noncommittal. 

“I hope they fully look into why the overruns,” Farnworth said March 26 in Lynn Valley. “Let’s put it this way, the overrun on that wastewater treatment plant could build SkyTrain to not just the North Shore, but to Port Coquitlam, as well. So it is quite concerning when you see that kind of an overrun, far in excess of anything that we have ever seen in the province.”

In 2017, before that year’s election, the BC Liberal government put up $193 million for the plant. 

Farnworth said the regional district must fully explain to member municipalities, the public and the province what went wrong. 

Metro Vancouver blamed pandemic work stoppages, supply chain challenges, construction material inflation and deficiencies by original designer and builder Acciona. After it was fired in 2002, Acciona sued for $250 million. Metro Vancouver countersued for $500 million. 

Metro Vancouver has not published the report that informed the decision. Chair George Harvie said that would be up to Dobrovolny and Metro Vancouver’s lawyers. 

Acciona remains very busy in British Columbia. It was part of the main civil works contract on the Site C dam, which doubled to at least $16 billion under the NDP. It is also building the $2.83 billion Broadway Subway and the $1.37 billion Pattullo Bridge replacement. Those projects have been delayed, but the NDP government has not updated the cost estimates. 

“I know the company has engaged in a lot of large building projects, not just here, but globally as well,” Farnworth said. “They’re one of the major contractors that do this kind of work. There is a limited number that do. I think what’s important here is to see what’s gone on and how things went so, so off the rails.”

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Bob Mackin  Good luck, Metro Vancouver, you’re going

Business, News

Bob Mackin 

The engineer who led the ­turnaround of the troubled Johnson Street Bridge replacement in Victoria said the Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster in Baltimore was an accident waiting to happen. 

Six people are presumed dead after the Singapore-flagged MV Dali container ship lost power and crashed into the 2.6 kilometre-long bridge early March 26. 

When one part of the bridge came down, it all came down, in what Jonathan Huggett called a “progressive collapse.”

MV Dali on March 26, 2024 (NTSB/YouTube)

“It’s just unbelievable that on something as strategic to the United States, the Baltimore port,  with a major highway crossing, why the hell would you have no protection for the supports?” Huggett said. “I mean, it was just a matter of time before a ship was going to lose power.”

Structural and operational reinforcements would have helped keep the bridge standing. 

“It’s fundamental engineering 101, you’re supposed to check that, in the event of some catastrophic failure, it doesn’t destroy the entire bridge,” the Surrey engineering consultant said. “So okay, we took out one support. So the pieces on each side of that are probably going to collapse, but right on the far side, it took down that as well. So everything went. So there’s a design flaw in it.”

Huggett noticed the bridge, in a major, heavy-traffic port, was lacking heavy-duty reinforced support islands that could have cushioned the blow of a heavy load collision. It also should have had diversion structures, in order to cause a ship to change course away from where it would have made the biggest impact. 

“As I understand it, the ship was doing between seven and eight knots, and it weighed 100,000 tonnes. That’s an enormous load,” he said. 

Without ways to stop or divert a freighter, a tugboat stationed at the bridge around the clock would have provided another layer of mitigation, to push the ship. That it does not appear to have been escorted by a tug is also troublesome. For the smaller Johnson Street Bridge in Victoria, the harbourmaster requires a two-tug escort. 

“Going to be serious implications on the economy of the Northeast United States, supply chain, the cost of rebuilding,” Huggett said. “Wouldn’t you think it would have been a good idea to have some kind of tug, stationed at that bridge pier?”

Tugs escort freighters through the Lions Gate Bridge and Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Bridge in Vancouver’s Burrard Inlet. But both are in need of diversions and reinforcements, which are under consideration by Port of Vancouver. 

The original Second Narrows Bridge collapsed during construction in 1958, killing 19 men. The freighter Japan Erica hit the railway bridge beside it in 1979. One section fell into the inlet and rail service was temporarily suspended between North Vancouver and Vancouver.

President Joe Biden has vowed to rebuild the Key bridge. Huggett said the 1977-opened span will unlikely be another steel truss design. Instead, he expects it will be a cable-stayed bridge. 

“If they do that, they can increase the span and make the channel wider.”

Supply chain expert Glenn Ross of ACC Group in Surrey said the Maersk-chartered ship managed by Singapore’s Synergy Maritime, began its journey in Busan, South Korea, stopped in Shanghai, China, went through the Panama Canal to New York and Norfolk, Va. before Baltimore. Its next stop was Colombo, Sri Lanka. 

Ross said the ship appeared to be near its 10,000 capacity of containers, but almost half of the containers were empty. 

“This ship doesn’t look like it took on too much ballast water because the bottom line is so visible above the water,” Ross said. 

“Something’s wrong here, because this ship is looking very high out of water.” 

Ross said the global shipping industry is facing a challenge because of the dangerous conditions in the Red Sea, where Hamas-sympathizing Houthis have attacked ships. That has forced companies to take the longer route around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. 

“Nobody can afford to see any one of these ships sidelined,” Ross said. 

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Bob Mackin  The engineer who led the ­turnaround

Business, News

Bob Mackin

The chair of Metro Vancouver said he was occupied in another meeting on the afternoon of March 22, at the same chief executive Jerry Dobrovolny revealed that it would cost $3.86 billion to finish the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant by 2030. 

The project was supposed to cost $700 million and be open in 2020.

Jerry Dobrovolny (upper left), Treasury Board president Anita Anand, George Harvie and Surrey Board of Trade’s Anita Huberman (Huberman/IG)

“It was a meeting that I had to attend, I was chairing that one also, that’s why I wasn’t there,” said George Harvie, who is also Mayor of Delta. “I had full confidence in Mr. Dobrovolny, our commissioner, to hold that press conference.”

Dobrovolny’s announcement came on a Friday afternoon in the middle of spring break, the week after a task force of regional politicians chaired by Harvie recommended carrying on with the project. It had been set back by pandemic delays, disputes with the original builder, Acciona, and a change in scope from secondary to tertiary treatment. After Metro Vancouver formally fired Acciona in early 2022, the Spanish company sued the regional district for $250 million. Metro Vancouver countersued for $500 million. 

Dobrovolny suggested the project could cost the average North Shore homeowner $775 a year over three decades to pay the additional cost. Harvie admitted his constituents won’t be spared. He said they’re looking at $80 per year under the regional sewage funding formula.

“Now, we have to go through a full review of this through our budget process, which is happening just in a very short time. That’s where it’ll be discussed and a decision made by the board as a whole,” Harvie said.

Asked if the task force documents, including the final report will be made public, Harvie said that decision will be left to Dobrovolny and the Metro Vancouver litigation team.

Harvie said the construction industry has changed immensely in recent years, to the point that “there’s no such thing as a fixed price anymore.”

“I would like to see a real good study done insofar as the future of these big projects in today’s world.”

The massive cost overrun at the North Vancouver project recalls the words of Bent Flyvbjerg, a business professor at Oxford University, who has analyzed megaprojects around the world. 

In his Iron Law of Megaprojects, Flyvbjerg said big infrastructure comes in “over budget, over time, under benefits, over and over again.”

“Overruns up to 50% in real terms are common, and over 50% overruns are not uncommon,” Flyvberg’s research has found.

The big reason is ego. Architects want visually pleasing products and engineers are excited by building the longest/fastest/tallest. Politicians have a tendency to want monuments that benefit themselves and their cause. Business people and trade unions want revenue and jobs.

At the March 22 announcement, Dobrovolny said the board would return to the federal government and provincial government to seek more funding. In 2017, the two combined for $405 million. Dobrovolny and Harvie met March 11 in Surrey with Anita Anand, the federal treasury board president. 

Harvie said Metro Vancouver mayors are “struggling” to find sustainable funding, for transit and utilities as population continues to increase. Major developments, such as the Broadway Corridor and Jericho Lands, will put more pressure on Vancouver to provide drinking water and sewage treatment. 

“When you look at the intended growth that the province and federal government are putting on local governments,” he said.  “We need to find it, we can’t continue to provide water and sewage services without assistance from the province and the federal government.”

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Bob Mackin The chair of Metro Vancouver said

Business, News, Opinion

For the week of March 17, 2024:

Rather than solve the affordable housing crisis, David Ley predicts pro-development politicians like Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, B.C. Premier David Eby and Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim will do more harm than good.

David Ley (UBC)

Ley is the professor emeritus of geography at the University of British Columbia and author of “Millionaire Migrants: Trans-Pacific Life Lines” (2010) and “Housing Booms in Gateway Cities” (2023). On March 20, he spoke at the Local Democracy Project’s forum at UBC Robson Square on “Civic Government: Corporate, Consultative or Participatory?”

Ley said that Vancouver already had an over-supply of housing and it did not translate to lower rents. The rush in 2024 to up-zone neighbourhoods without public hearings and “build, build, build!” will result in more evictions and government-led gentrification.

“The survival options are the options that we will see increasingly: living in camper vans, homelessness, encampments,” Ley said. “I fear that current policy, plus the federal immigration policy which is reckless, in terms of the capacity of cities to provide services — including housing services for this population — I think that this is simply an inevitable outcome.”

Hear Ley’s speech on this edition of thePodcast. 

Plus, the Sin Bin and this week’s Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines. 

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For the week of March 17, 2024: Rather

Business, News

Bob Mackin 

Metro Vancouver believes the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant will cost $3.86 billion and be substantially complete in 2030. 

That is more than $3 billion extra and 10 years later than originally planned. 

Commissioner Jerry Dobrovolny made the announcement March 22, the week after a task force of regional politicians held its last monthly closed-door meeting.

A timeline of how the biggest infrastructure scandal in North Shore history unfolded. 

Feb. 14, 2014

Metro Vancouver board directed staff to do a design/build/finance deal for the Lions Gate Secondary Treatment Plant and seek senior government grants. The project was estimated at $700 million. 

March 11, 2017

North Vancouver Liberal MP Jonathan Wilkinson announced a $212 million federal grant to the Lions Gate Wastewater Treatment Plant project and B.C. Liberal Community, Sport and Cultural Development Minister Peter Fassbender announced a $193 million grant at the same photo op. 

April 5, 2017

Metro Vancouver approved Acciona Wastewater Solutions LP for the $525 million design, build, finance contract. “New wastewater management regulations in Canada require all primary treatment plants in urban areas to upgrade to secondary treatment by 2020.”

April 10-issued stop work order for the $779M North Shore sewage plant project (Mackin)

Aug. 31, 2018 

At the groundbreaking ceremony, North Vancouver City Mayor Darrell Mussatto said: “It will be done by the end of 2020, which is wonderful, and will replace the oldest facility that Metro Vancouver has in wastewater.”

Jan. 10, 2019

In an interview with theBreaker.news, Metro Vancouver chair and Burnaby city councillor Sav Dhaliwal said: “It is exactly what we have signed, on budget and on time.”

Jan. 17, 2019

Report from project manager Paul Dufault said the approved budget increased to $777.9 million. 

April 4, 2019

Subcontractor Tetra Tech sued Acciona for $20 million. 

April 10, 2019

District of North Vancouver issued stop work order.

Construction site signs from North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant (Mackin)

 

March 12, 2021

New budget number. Metro Vancouver finally revealed that the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant would cost $1.058 billion and be finished in 2024.

Oct. 15, 2021

Metro Vancouver said it would cancel the contract with Acciona. 

Jan. 20, 2022

Metro Vancouver issued termination notice to Acciona, claiming the Spanish company had abandoned the site, shrinking crews from 300 to 50 workers. Acciona denied. 

Acciona knew it was coming. One of its employees, Anika Calder, took photographs of a confidential Metro Vancouver report dated Jan. 17, 2022. Calder had been visiting her father, Coquitlam city manager Peter Steblin, who used Greater Vancouver Sewage and Drainage District chair and Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart’s log-in credentials.

Feb. 25, 2022

Metro Vancouver hired PCL Constructors Westcoast Inc, as the general contractor. 

Sept. 20, 2023

Columnist Kirk LaPointe in the North Shore News, “Shocking bill coming for North Shore wastewater treatment plant”

“…it will be best to read the next line sitting down. I’m told the new estimate is coming in at … $4 billion.”

Sept. 30, 2023

Metro Vancouver chair George Harvie struck a task force to review options to complete the project, with a mid-2024 target to report findings and recommendations. Meetings happened monthly behind closed doors. 

March 22, 2024

On a Friday afternoon in the middle of Spring Break, Dobrovolny announced the board has approved a $3.86 billion budget, for substantial completion in 2030. 

He said the “average household impact” is $725 per year for North Shore residents over 30 years. For Vancouverites it’ll be $140 and Richmonders $70. 

“The litigation is is active with Acciona, and so I can’t get into specifics on that. I have not spoken to the RCMP, but I can’t get into the specifics of the litigation that’s ongoing.”

Dobrovolny made the announcement solo on the 29th floor of Metro Vancouver’s Metrotower III offices. None of the mayors or councillors on the Metro Vancouver board attended. 

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Bob Mackin  Metro Vancouver believes the North Shore

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