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A member of the BC United executive board resigned Oct. 24 over a social media post that the Conservative Party of B.C. said was sympathetic to terrorists.

Kevin Falcon

Gul Gulsen, who was the party’s secretary, reacted to the Oct. 18 explosion at the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza by reposting a link to a story by Al Jazeera English and including her thoughts on the incident. 

“For those accepting claims that Hamas was behind the hospital bombing: you have sold your critical thinking skills to the genocidal cause… just what western media and governments wanted.” She included the hashtags #PalestineGenocide #Gaza #GazaHospitalAttack and #CeasefireNOW.

The Israel Defense Forces denied bombing the hospital and released evidence that pointed to an explosion caused by a rocket shot from inside Gaza. The U.S., U.K., France and eventually Canada agreed that Israel did not bomb the hospital. 

On Tuesday, on X, formerly known as Twitter, the Conservatives called it “deeply disturbing and upsetting to see… Gulsen defending Hamas, peddle disinformation and call Israel a genocidal state.” 

BC United leader Kevin Falcon reacted by contacting party president John Yap and directing him to call for Gulsen’s immediate resignation. Falcon said he strongly condemned the remarks and reaffirmed the party’s “unequivocal support for the Jewish community here in B.C. as well as Israel’s right to exist and defend itself.”

In her “statement of clarification and resignation,” Gulsen said she complied, but maintained that her “defence of innocent Palestinian civilians does not by any means intend anti-semitism, denial of Israel’s right to exist, or defence of Hamas’ terrorism.” She threatened legal action against those that suggest otherwise. 

“The posts were not intended to offend anyone, but to bring awareness to atrocities being carried out in Palestine, which have been internationally acknowledged as war crimes,”said Gulsen’s statement. 

Her statement mentioned unsourced estimates of 5,000 deaths in Gaza, which correspond with estimates collected by the United Nations. However, she did not mention the 1,300-plus Israeli civilians killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack (including at least five Canadians), nor the 200-plus Israeli hostages taken by Hamas. 

The Canadian government has considered Hamas a terrorist group since 2002. 

“I certainly feel that my rights to exercise freedom of speech have been infringed on in my personal life as a result of my association with the BC United Party,” said Gulsen’s statement. 

Gulsen could not be reached for further comment. The director of administration at the Bennett Jones law firm, where Gulsen had been ex-Premier Christy Clark’s assistant, said she had not worked there since Sept. 27. 

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A 61-year-old tugboat operator died after the vessel capsized off Point Grey on Oct. 23. 

The man’s name was not released.

Hovercraft Siyay (Canadian Coast Guard)

In a news release on Oct. 24, the RCMP said the University detachment received a report at 2:44 p.m. that a body washed ashore at Tower Beach. 

The Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC) had received a mayday distress call from a tugboat operator around 1:30 p.m.

RCMP public information officer S. Sgt. Kris Clark said the investigation continues but the man was operating the vessel alone and there were no other injuries. The cause is not known, but strong winds and turbulent waters may have contributed to the capsizing. 

Canadian Coast Guard hovercraft Siyay, lifeboat Laredo Sound and a search and rescue inflatable after JRCC responded, along with a CH-149 Cormorant helicopter. The operation was called-off at 6:20 p.m. 

B.C. Coroners’ Service, Transportation Safety Board of Canada and WorkSafeBC are investigating. 

“Tragically, despite an excellent coordinated effort by multiple responding agencies, the lone operator could not be revived,” Clark said. “Our hearts go out to the man’s family and friends in this difficult time.”

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The first Chinese government delegation to make an official trip to B.C. since 2018 visited Vancouver city hall on Oct. 19, but no politicians were involved in greeting the Communist Party secretary from sister city Guangzhou.

Guo Yonghang, the CCP’s top man in Guangzhou

Guo Yonghang led the 16-member entourage that met with six bureaucrats: city manager Paul Mochrie and deputy city manager Armin Amrolia and three managers and an officer from intergovernmental affairs, external relations and protocol departments. 

Guo was listed on the delegation as Mayor of Guangzhou, but Chinese-language media reports indicate he resigned Oct. 9. New acting mayor Sun Zhiyang was not on the list. 

“The one-hour meeting focused on introductions and information sharing around culture,” said Johann Chang of Vancouver city hall’s communications department. 

“There was no readout at the end of the meeting. There was no media in attendance. The city has nothing further to discuss on this matter.”

Guo, who had been appointed mayor in 2021, was accompanied by another CCP member, Bian Liming, the secretary general of Guangzhou’s municipal committee, and Zhang Jianjun, director of hospitality for the party committee’s general office in Guangzhou. The list of attendees, provided by Chang, named five members of the Guangzhou foreign affairs office and three others from the Guangzhou municipal government. 

Rather than Consul-General Yang Shu, the most-senior local Chinese diplomat to attend was Chen Qingjie. Chen is officially ranked consul, but is the director for the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, which runs activities for the CCP’s United Front propaganda and foreign influence program.

Representing the Vancouver-Guangzhou Friendship Society were president William Ma and vice-president Fred Mah. 

Glynnis Chan, a director of the society, said Guo’s group was the first of its kind since 2018 when Premier John Horgan hosted a 24-person entourage led by Wang Chen from Xi Jinping’s Politburo. That was the same month as the 9th Conference of the World Guangdong Community Federation at the Vancouver Convention Centre.

The delegation arrived at Vancouver International Airport on a flight early Oct. 19 from Shenzhen. Chan believed the group would visit Victoria and possibly the U.S. before returning to Guangzhou. She said she understood that Mayor Ken Sim was busy “with another important meeting already committed.” 

“We are pleased this delegation group came in today,” Chan said. “Hopefully, one day, we are back to a better relationship.”

Relations soured between Canada and China in late 2018 when the Chinese government took Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor hostage in retaliation for the RCMP arrest of Meng Wanzhou. The Huawei CFO was nabbed on behalf of U.S. authorities investigating bank fraud. A year later, the virus that would become known as COVID-19 began spreading from Wuhan, leading to the global pandemic. 

“After COVID-19 and then the political situation between China and Canada, the argument between each other, the official delegation to Canada is very low-profile,” Chan said.

Guo Yonghang, the CCP’s top man in Guangzhou (WeChat)

Guangzhou, with more than 18.7 million residents, is the capital of Guangdong province, China’s manufacturing and high-tech heartland. Vancouver and Guangzhou established sister city relations in 1985. In 2015, the cities marked the 30th anniversary of twinning when Guangzhou Mayor Chen Jianhua and Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson unveiled a sculpture outside 12th and Cambie and appeared at an economic and finance forum at the Four Seasons Hotel.

Guo’s visit came after the Oct. 15 anniversary of ABC Vancouver leader Sim’s landslide election as the first Vancouver mayor of Chinese descent. 

In March, the Globe and Mail reported on leaks from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service that indicated a Chinese diplomat in Vancouver worked to defeat Taiwan-supporter Kennedy Stewart and help get a Chinese-Canadian candidate elected. “If there is proof of this, I’d be as made as hell as everyone else,” Sim said at the time.

According to Sim’s agendas through September, he has not held a one-on-one meeting with any Chinese government official. By contrast, he met in June with Angel Liu, director general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Vancouver, the de facto consulate for self-governing Taiwan. 

Also last June, ABC Coun. Lenny Zhou attended the 34th anniversary memorial for victims of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Zhou, who was born in China, has spoken out in favour of human rights and democracy and attended protests critical of China, Russia and Iran. 

Macdonald Laurier Institute senior fellow Charles Burton, a former diplomat at Canada’s Beijing embassy, said this is an awkward time for Guo to visit Vancouver. He wondered what the benefit would be for Canada to receive such a delegation while so many questions remain unanswered about China’s interference in Canadian affairs, including the last federal election and illegal police stations.  

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Eight people have died at a temporary North Vancouver supportive housing facility since March 2022, according to the BC Housing contractor. 

That is four times the number that the Ministry of Housing originally told a reporter.

Travelodge Lions Gate (Travelodge)

During the Oct. 16 Question Period, BC United housing critic Karin Kirkpatrick (West Vancouver-Capilano) challenged Premier David Eby to investigate living conditions at the former Travelodge Lions Gate motel on Marine Drive.  

“Neighbours have reached a breaking point,” Kirkpatrick said in the Legislature. “They report to me that people are dying and being removed from the Travelodge in body bags. Now, we owe vulnerable British Columbians better than that.”

Instead of Eby, Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon delivered the government response, but he did not acknowledge or dispute the claim of deaths. 

Kirkpatrick did not mention any numbers, so a reporter asked the Ministry of Health. 

A statement from the Ministry on Oct. 17, via communications manager Tasha Schollen, said two people had died since March 2022 and cited contractor Lu’ma Native Housing Society as the source. The Ministry said BC Housing reviews incidents, especially involving a death, to avoid similar circumstances, and that the government is “deeply saddened by any loss of life.” 

But B.C. Coroners Service spokesperson Ryan Panton said there had been six deaths investigated in the period. He declined to provide dates or causes of each death, due to privacy protocols. 

“It should be noted that not all deaths meet the reporting criteria outlined in Part 2 of the Coroners Act, so it is possible that additional deaths may have occurred at this location that were not reported to our agency,” Panton said. 

The law requires a person to report to a coroner or peace officer when a death occurs that involves violence, accident, neglect, self-inflicted illness or injury, pregnancy or when a person who is not treated by a medical practitioner dies suddenly and unexpectedly or by disease or sickness. 

Lu’ma CEO Marcel Lawson Swain, director of housing operations Barbara Lawson Swain and executive director Mary Uljevic did not respond to interview requests. 

(Lu’ma Native Housing Society)

In an Oct. 18 interview, Mike Walker, the lawyer for Lu’ma, originally said there had been five deaths since March 2022, one of which occurred prior to Lu’ma assuming full responsibility for the site. Walker revised the amount to eight in a Thursday interview: five from natural causes, two from overdoses and one from a collision with a charter bus.

He said he did not know the dates. One incident, however, received substantial publicity. A man in his 50s, who Walker said was a member of the Squamish Nation, died of his injuries after being run over by a charter bus on Aug. 23. The man had been on the sidewalk next to the bus lane, just outside the Travelodge.

In early 2020, the province leased a third of the Travelodge rooms in order to ease overcrowding at homeless shelters due to the pandemic and hired Lookout Housing and Health Society as the operator. By March 2022, BC Housing leased all suites and switched operators from Lookout to Lu’ma. The transition was complete by the end of June 2022. 

Walker said that there are generally five people working the dayshift, including two support workers, a program manager, maintenance worker and homemaker. Overnight, at least two people are on-site. Policy dictates staff check-off a list of the residents they see. If any are not seen after three consecutive eight-hour shifts, a wellness check protocol begins with phone calls to suites and escalates to door knocking and entering, if necessary.  

“We would never want to be cavalier about a human life. But, nonetheless, balancing respect for privacy, with people’s safety, with people’s health, with well-being of the neighbourhood,” Walker said. 

Schollen said Oct. 20 that Kahlon was not available for an interview. She sent a statement five hours later, attributed to Kahlon. 

“Any death that occurs is tragic. The province, through BC Housing, offers supportive housing and complex care housing for our most vulnerable citizens with a wide range of supports for people living with a variety of challenges,” read the statement. “We will continue to work with our services providers to help individuals to access safe and stable housing.”

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For the week of Oct. 22, 2023:

North Vancouver defender Ciara McCormack sparked calls for a public inquiry into abuse in Canadian sports after her 2019 blog revealed a disgraced Whitecaps and national team coach had returned to coaching teenage girls. Bob Birarda was jailed in 2022 for sexually assaulting four players over 20 years.

McCormack had a 17-year playing career in North America and Europe and even played for Ireland’s national team. She made a comeback as a 43-year-old early in 2023 with Treaty United FC. With the backing of Vancouver investors, she has become CEO of the club in Limerick, Ireland. 

Listen to host Bob Mackin’s interview with McCormack, about her unique journey and plans to build pro soccer in Ireland’s midwest. 

Plus, headlines from the Pacific Rim and the Pacific Northwest. 

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

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For the week of Oct. 22, 2023:

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A B.C. Court of Appeal tribunal reserved judgment on Oct. 19 about whether John Horgan broke the law when the NDP leader called a snap election in September 2020 during the pandemic state of emergency. 

Lawyers for Democracy Watch and Integrity BC founder Wayne Crookes asked Justices Peter Willcock, Barbara Fisher and Ronald Skolrood to overturn B.C. Supreme Court Justice Geoffrey Gomery’s June 2022 ruling. Gomery found the B.C. Constitution Act was “unambiguous” because it gives the lieutenant-governor the power, whenever he or she sees fit, to act on a premier’s advice to dissolve the legislature. The appellants argued that a confidence vote in the legislature is necessary to call an early election in B.C. since the law was amended in 2001 to hold provincial elections on a fixed date.

John Horgan on 2020 election night (BC NDP/Flickr)

“Democracy Watch’s position here is quite straightforward. The statute that purported to fix election dates did, in fact, do so. It asks that the government be required to comply with that statute and that the courts exercise its supervisory role to require that,” said Emily MacKinnon, lawyer for the appellants.

MacKinnon noted the government’s position that the statute is not binding, but is instead “aspirational” or that it “merely sets a horizon.” The government also argued that courts are incapable of considering the legal boundaries of elections.

“We think none of those arguments hold water and that the statute does what the government of the day said it would do: it fixes election dates,” MacKinnon said. “It strikes at the power concentrated in the premier’s office, and, as the electorate of B.C. expected, that it would impose a mandatory cycle of fixed elections.”

Emily Lapper of the government’s Legal Services Branch said that there is no statement in the legislation that says the general voting day cannot occur at an earlier date. Lapper asked for dismissal of the appeal on the grounds that Horgan and Lt.-Gov. Janet Austin were “exercising prerogative powers and those prerogative powers are fundamentally non justiciable” — or not within the court’s jurisdiction.

“The court could dismiss the appeal on the basis that even if the lieutenant-governor or the premier were exercising statutory powers, that those statutory powers pertain to a subject matter that remains non-justiciable,” Lapper told the tribunal.

The BC Liberal government under Gordon Campbell amended the Constitution Act when the party came to power in 2001. The province held four consecutive scheduled elections every four years in May, beginning in 2005.

After the Green-supported NDP minority government came to power in 2017, the law was amended to move the next election to October 2021. However, Horgan took advantage of a lull between waves of the COVID-19 pandemic and polling favourable to the NDP government to break the NDP’s 2017 confidence and supply agreement with the Green Party on Sept. 21, 2020 in order to seek a majority mandate. 

It worked, because the NDP won 57 seats in the Oct. 24, 2020 election.

Gomery’s ruling came the same week last year that Horgan announced his retirement from politics. Coincidentally, Thursday’s Court of Appeal hearing was exactly one year before the next scheduled election day. 

Premier David Eby, who succeeded Horgan last November, has repeatedly denied plans to call an early election.

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Vancouver city manager Paul Mochrie has added a third deputy. 

In a memo to staff on Oct. 19, Mochrie announced that Sandra Singh has been promoted immediately from general manager of arts, culture and community services. She joins Armin Amrolia and Karen Levitt in the deputy city manager suites at 12th and Cambie. The city will hire a replacement for Singh’s previous role.

Paul Mochrie (Vancouver Economic Commission)

“In this new capacity, Sandra will also provide overall coordination for our cross-departmental response to homelessness, encampments and similar complex social challenges,” Mochrie wrote. 

Singh’s portfolio includes the Intergovernmental Relations team and the Office of the Chief Safety Officer. 

Amrolia’s portfolio has been expanded to include non-market housing delivery and oversight of the Vancouver Affordable Housing Endowment Fund. Levitt will oversee the establishment of the city’s Business and Economy Office, including the consolidation of functions from the recently announced shut down of the Vancouver Economic Commission.   

“We are making these adjustments in response to key opportunities and pressures facing the city at this point in time and to ensure our organization is best positioned to fulfill the direction set out by council for the coming years,” Mochrie said.

Since the real estate and facilities management position remains vacant, the shuffle will not mean an increase in executive positions. Mochrie’s memo hinted to other changes to come. 

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Harsh words for the Canadian government from the Michigan judge that sentenced a former USA Gymnastics team doctor to life in prison in 2018 and the most-decorated women’s tennis champion of all-time.

Judge Rosemarie Aquilina on Oct. 19, 2023 (University of New Haven)

Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, who presided over Larry Nassar’s sexual assault trial, spoke Oct. 19 during the University of New Haven’s 2023 Noble Purpose for Sports Integrity Award online ceremony. The Liberal government was chosen for the Ignoble Purpose award for demonstrating the worst principles in the sports world over the last year, because it has refused to call a public inquiry into abuse and corruption in Canadian sport. Runners-up were match-fixers in Balkan countries and the PGA Tour, for merging with the Saudi-backed LIV circuit despite the pleas of 9/11 victims’ families. 

Aquilina recounted how she testified to a House of Commons committee last June and was disappointed that Canada had won an award in the same category as 2022 FIFA World Cup host Qatar.

“My plea for help, for action, for safety of all athletes fell on deaf ears,” Aquilina said. “I don’t think we’ve seen as many athletes coming forward in any country united and calling for help, calling for an inquiry to uncover the reasons why abuse is so rampant in Canada. Yes, Canada, a country known internationally for being a safe place. But clearly, Canada is not a safe place for athletes. It is not a safe place for children competing in sport.”

She said that the Canadian government’s inaction means it “continues to act as co-conspirators in the abuse suffered by all athletes of all ages.”

“Safety is a human right. Safety is not a question mark. Safety is not to be ignored. And yet, Canada takes no action,” Aquilina said. 

Declan Hill, the professor who heads the Connecticut university’s Sports Integrity Centre, called it very difficult to listen to Aquilina’s speech because he is Canadian, but “it’s even more difficult to realize that every syllable of what you speak is true.”

In late July, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shuffled Pascale St-Onge out of the sport ministry and into Canadian Heritage, where she spearheads the government’s politically fraught Online News Act. During her tenure as sport minister, St-Onge temporarily froze funding for high-profile organizations facing abuse allegations, such as Hockey Canada, and introduced reforms, including the new Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner. But she stopped short of calling a public inquiry. 

Delta MP Carla Qualtrough returned as sport minister in late July. The lawyer and former Paralympic swimmer had the role during the first half of Trudeau’s first term in office.

In a September interview with the Canadian Press, Qualtrough was noncommittal about an inquiry but conceded that “trust in sport leaders, trust in sports organizations has eroded and there is a lack of confidence in the system.”

Meanwhile, Czech-born tennis legend Martina Navratilova slammed the Canadian government in her Noble Purpose Award acceptance speech. Even while battling cancer earlier this year, Navratilova remained an active campaigner for equal pay, protection from abuse, inclusivity for gay and lesbian athletes, and to keep male-born athletes out of women and girls’ sports competitions.

“You know, it’s funny that Canada got this award, for the ignoble award, for denying victims of sexual abuse to speak out in athletics, and at the same time, putting trans-women rights ahead of women athletes,” Navratilova said. 

In her acceptance speech, Navratilova emphatically said that “we are not anti-trans, we are pro-women, pro-sports, pro-fairness, pro-equality. And we must find a way where everybody is welcome, but not at the cost of fairness to women and girls.”

Runners-up were Kenyan activist Malcom Bidali, who exposed labour abuses in Qatar before the World Cup, and Vinicius Junior, the Brazilian-born Real Madrid player and anti-racism advocate. 

A year ago, the inaugural winner was a Canadian — University of Western Ontario sports law professor Richard McLaren, who investigated Russia’s state-sponsored sports doping.

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One of the escalators replaced three years ago at Granville SkyTrain Station malfunctioned in late September, leaving three people with unspecified injuries. 

A person not authorized to speak to the media said that one of the escalators stopped and suddenly accelerated at least twice with people aboard, causing passengers to fall onto each other.

Granville SkyTrain Station escalators (TransLink/Buzzer)

“TransLink is aware of an incident involving an escalator accelerating at Granville Station on Sept. 29, resulting in three reported injuries,” said senior media relations manager Shruti Prakash Joshi. “Technical Safety BC was informed immediately and the escalator was taken out of service. The cause of the incident is being investigated.”

Joshi said the escalator is maintained and managed by the manufacturer and TransLink hopes it will be back operating by the end of the week.

TransLink’s account on X, originally known as Twitter, said that the Seymour Street entrance to Granville Station was temporarily closed Oct. 5 for escalator inspection. 

In July 2020, TransLink finished a $14.52 million project to replace the Granville Station escalators. The “big three” escalators, the longest in Metro Vancouver, are 35 metres long each, with 500 steps. 

Granville Station was the start of a 13-station program to replace 37 Expo Line and West Coast Express escalators that are more than 30 years old. A year ago, TransLink began to replace five escalators at Burrard Station in a project that is scheduled to be completed in spring 2024.

In its 2022 statement of financial information, TransLink reported paying escalator and elevator company Kone Inc. $6.65 million. The B.C. Rapid Transit Co. (BCRTC) rail division paid $1.3 million.

According to the TransLink website, the new escalators are supposed to provide smoother operation and braking for passenger safety, a variable speed option to save energy, LED step lighting and improved accessibility for maintenance so as to reduce downtime. 

TransLink’s safety report does not separate onboard and off-board injuries. The customer injury rate on the Expo and Millennium lines have fluctuated above and below the rate of one customer injury claim per million boardings since 2018. 

Granville Station had 4.8 million boardings in 2022 and was the fifth busiest station of the year. TransLink reported 83 million riders in 2022 on the two lines. In 2019, before the pandemic, it was 115 million. 

BCRTC president Sany Zein’s report to the Sept. 27 TransLink board meeting said that during the second quarter of 2023, there were 27 incidents reported by customers. Over half were slips, trips and falls on “elevating devices.” 

Vancouver public transit watchdog Nathan Davidowicz, who publishes the weekly Alternative Buzzer newsletter, said there are too many injuries to passengers and staff. He said projects like the escalator replacement take too long and rely on consultants, rather than staff. TransLink would be better off in the long-run, he said, if it were absorbed by government. 

“It’s the same model as BC Ferries and now the government is realizing that model is bad,” he said. “They carry 10 times more passengers than BC Ferries.”

Last year, TransLink reported 194 million journeys, while BC Ferries carried 21.6 million passengers. 

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Almost five months before they told the public that the budget to build the new PNE Amphitheatre had ballooned by 53 per cent, officials behind the project faced a dilemma. 

Vancouver city council unanimously approved hiking the 10,000-seat concert venue from $64.8 million to $103.7 million on July 12. A staff report cited additional features, market conditions, soil remediation, an archaeological assessment and relocation of an underground pipe.

The siting of Playland’s new rollercoaster complicated plans for the new PNE Amphitheatre, according to documents released by Vancouver city hall under freedom of information. The $10.5 million rollercoaster is scheduled to open next summer, the $103.7 million amphitheatre in 2026. (Mackin photos)

A February project update for a meeting about the Hastings Park-PNE Master Plan, obtained under freedom of information, said Playland’s new $9 million launch rollercoaster conflicted with the amphitheatre’s footprint. 

“New coaster has impacts to Festival Plaza, daylighting creek and amphitheatre design vision, thus impacting original approved business case outcomes,” said the presentation. 

It said the $3.5 million allocated for utility infrastructure improvements “may not fully cover design and construction costs for amphitheatre [utility] infrastructure.”

Italy’s Zamperla is building the new launch rollercoaster, expected to be complete by next summer, on the site of the decommissioned Corkscrew Coaster. 

“Land use conflicts exist between amphitheatre and launch coaster designs,” said the presentation. “Options analysis underway. Recommendation to be assessed by steering committee before being presented to PNE board for decision.”

There were three options proposed: rotate the coaster 180 degrees, reduce amphitheatre seating or shift the amphitheatre west.

A March 1 email from strategic business advisory manager Harry Khella to city manager Paul Mochrie and other top officials said the “significant” space conflicts between the amphitheatre and roller coaster had only recently been identified. A section of the email was censored due to exceptions to the FOI law for advice and recommendations and fear of harming a public body’s finances. Khella’s list of emerging challenges included “funding availabilities.” 

PNE Amphitheatre (PNE/CoV)

Khella’s March 22 email to PNE management and city hall directors said officials were “reviewing if scope and design changes to the amphitheatre impact business case revenue projections and loan payback.”

Khella wrote that the PNE proposed moving the launch coaster northeastward, but space conflicts with the amphitheatre remained. 

A spokesperson for the PNE said Oct. 17 that the rollercoaster shift was not as severe as originally thought. However, the rollercoaster’s price tag increased to $10.5 million.

“As part of our final siting of the launch coaster prior to assembly, the decision was made to move it approximately 10 metres northeast to accommodate the footprint of the new amphitheatre,” said Laura Ballance. “As a result we needed some additional site servicing and piling work for the final location that was selected, which cost $1.5 million.”

Labour Day’s PNE Fair-closing Blue Rodeo concert was the last for the existing, 59-year-old amphitheatre. Construction on the new one has yet to begin, but completion is targeted for spring 2026 so that it can be the centrepiece of the city’s FIFA Fan Zone for the 2026 World Cup. 

City hall withheld the business case from the FOI release, but a June 2021 report to council’s Standing Committee on Policy and Strategic Priorities said the original concept was developed in 2019. It supported filling the gap in the local live event market by building a venue that could hold between 2,000 and 10,000 spectators with shelter from the rain year-round. It would increase the amount of events outside the annual summer fair period from five to 49 a year with revenue increasing from $1.4 million to $9.7 million annually. 

The financial forecast “showed a strong economic return with a 12-year payback, $49 million 40-year net present value and 9 per cent internal rate of return.” 

In April, the PNE announced it would sell naming rights for the amphitheatre. More than 25 prospective candidates showed interest. Meetings and site inspections were scheduled for bidders from July to September. Nov. 16 is the deadline for bids.

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