Metro Vancouver is pausing its independent review of the ill-fated North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant until after the lawsuits between the regional government and fired contractor Acciona are resolved. Independent, indeed.
The biggest gesture the Metro board has made toward accountability – which many criticized as insufficient in the first place – won’t happen until 2027, at the earliest, when the matter is scheduled to go to trial.
Unsurprisingly, this is totally unacceptable for those urgently demanding a clear understanding of how this project went so far off the rails.
The treatment plant will already go down as one of biggest fiscal fiascos in our region’s history. But with hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits hanging in the balance, things could get a whole lot worse still.
We imagine it was on the advice of Metro Vancouver’s lawyers not to proceed with any review that could prejudice the government’s case at trial.
That is if it goes to trial at all. Far more likely, the parties will settle out of court and keep the terms zipped up in non-disclosure agreements – exactly what happened a decade ago when the Seymour-Capilano Water Filtration Project became mired in similar suits.
Settling out of court is fine for private businesses, but Metro Vancouver is our regional level of government. It exists owing a perpetual debt of transparency and accountability to us.
If the mistakes that doomed the wastewater treatment plant to this fate are being repeated with other megaprojects today, we need to know about it now. Not after, at a trial, or worse, never at all.
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