Straight 50: A tale of two B.C. governments and two white elephants

More than 20 years ago, the then leader of the Progressive Democratic Alliance, Gordon Wilson, stopped by the Georgia Straight office and dropped a huge pile of documents on the table. They offered stunning revelations about an NDP government scheme to develop high-speed catamarans to ply the waters of the Strait of Georgia.

Someone had leaked Wilson loads of material suggesting that these vessels wouldn’t fit B.C. Ferries’ docking facilities, wouldn’t achieve their desired speeds, and would end up costing far more than the government expected. There were also safety concerns.

After the Straight published this scoop, the minister responsible for the program, Glen Clark, accused me of not telling the truth about his beloved fast-ferry program. The head of B.C. Ferries, Frank Rhodes, claimed over the phone that I hated his organization.

I responded that I didn’t hate B.C. Ferries. I was merely reporting what I had heard. The cost of this infamous boat-building program ballooned over the years from $210 million to $460 million before the vessels were sold for scrap.

A decade later, I chronicled the growing cost of the new Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre, which was built by the B.C. Liberal government. Initially, the minister responsible, Rick Thorpe, told me that it wouldn’t cost a penny more than $495 million. A new minister seemed to be appointed every time the price went up before it reached $883 million.

For some reason, the B.C. Liberals were never as sensitive as the NDP to damning articles about their local white elephant. This was true even when the Straight pointed out that the convention centre’s primary purpose seemed to be to lift nearby land values and that it hadn’t resulted in any significant increase in out-of-town-delegate days.

To this day, voters haven’t been nearly as vexed over the convention-centre boondoggle as they were over the fast ferries, even though the cost overrun was far larger. Perhaps we can attribute that to the public’s love for shiny, even if underutilized, new buildings on the waterfront.