To be clear, North Shore residents did not cause the almost-$3 billion in cost overruns in the disastrous North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant construction.
But the Metro Vancouver board, which is made up of mayors and councillors from across the region, has decided we should shoulder the largest share of the financial burden.
That means our tax bills will be going up by an average of $600 per year for the next 30 years to cover sewage costs alone.
It is entirely foreseeable that, to cushion the blow on North Shore taxpayers, our local councils will start chopping from elsewhere in their own budgets. Money that should be spent on parks, recreation, infrastructure and other things that bring quality of life will instead go to paying for someone else’s incompetence.
But before anyone on the North Shore, or anywhere for that matter, opens their wallets, Metro Vancouver should first open their books, so to speak. The board and senior staff have used tightly controlled communications strategies to keep the public – and even our own elected officials – in the dark about how this project was botched to boondoggle scale.
Lawsuits on the issue will likely drag on for a decade. Meanwhile, no one has been held accountable.
At this point, we have no faith in Metro Vancouver to voluntarily level with the public, and so provincial Minister of Municipal Affairs Anne Kang must order an independent audit or inquiry.
Without that basic transparency, Metro Vancouver’s sewage costs may be akin to flushing money down the toilet.
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