West Vancouver needs to lead, not follow
The North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant will be a major issue in this election.
What began as a project estimated at about $700 million is now projected to cost $3.86 billion—and that figure may not be the end of it. The financial burden will remain with property owners for decades through wastewater charges, levies, debt and interest.
Based on the current cost-allocation and financing assumptions, West Vancouver’s share could approach $430 million. That is an extraordinary burden for a community that did not create this failure and was not given a meaningful chance to understand its scale before the costs became unavoidable.
Metro Vancouver has now resumed its promised review of the project. That may be useful. But it remains a Metro Vancouver-commissioned process: Metro determines the structure, retains the advisers and controls the institutional environment in which the review takes place. To be independent, it needs to be outside of its control.
The record should concern every taxpayer. Remember: Metro reluctantly announced a performance audit, then a review, then moved to create it, selected a team, paused it during litigation, and is now proceeding again after settling with the former contractor.
This issue is too large, too prolonged and too consequential to be left solely to a process shaped within the institution under examination.
West Vancouver should formally ask the Province’s Inspector of Municipalities to conduct a public statutory inquiry under section 765 of the Local Government Act. That would be a process outside Metro Vancouver’s control, with formal powers to investigate, a public hearing process, and a report to provincial Cabinet.
The British Properties Area Homeowners Association, the Ambleside & Dundarave Residents Association and the North Shore Neighbourhoods’ Alliance have called for that stronger inquiry. I support their efforts.
In September 2023, I was first to reveal that the plant’s ultimate cost could approach $4 billion—nearly six times the original budget. That estimate was dismissed by my opponent in this mayoral race. Months later, Metro Vancouver confirmed a $3.86-billion estimate.
My opponent did not create this overrun. But once its scale became clear, West Vancouver needed a mayor who would lead publicly and persistently for taxpayers.
He should have demanded the full updated business case, a clear account of the cost escalation, disclosure of the decisions that changed project risk and delivery, regular public reporting, and independent engineering and financial assurance.
He should have challenged the cost allocation more visibly. He should have led a sustained North Shore coalition. And he should have pressed consistently for the strongest possible independent scrutiny.
This is not simply a sewer project. It is a test of whether taxpayers can expect transparency, accountability and determined representation when regional government makes costly mistakes.
I believe West Vancouver needs a mayor who will insist on answers, and I will not stop until taxpayers receive them.