B.C. councillors call for governance review amid 'revelations of wasteful spending and questionable governance'
Metro Vancouver is initiating a governance review starting next week amid criticism about finances.
Board chair Mike Hurley confirmed the development during a recent Mayors’ Committee meeting, according to a Global News report.
This comes as criticism rises over the region’s spending practices and the financial strain caused by major cost overruns on infrastructure projects such as the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Spending on travel and hospitality has also drawn sharp criticism. Investigations by Global News revealed costly taxpayer-funded trips to destinations such as Amsterdam, Lisbon, and New Orleans. In one instance, an open-bar reception cost taxpayers $64,600, raising questions about budget priorities.
Additional scrutiny has been directed toward Metro Vancouver’s communication department. A Freedom of Information request found that the district employs 13 communications staff members, collectively costing up to $1.7 million annually.
“Metro Vancouver should be held accountable for questionable expenditures,” say city councillors from across British Columbia.
“Taxpayers are fully within their rights to ask how Metro Vancouver, whose stated and legislated core focus is to coordinate the construction of water and sanitation projects, has gone so badly off the rails and expanded its scope over the past few years,” say Fontaine; Paul Minhas, city councillor in New Westminster; Kash Heed, city councillor in Richmond; and Brent Asmundson, city councillor in Coquitlam, in an opinion piece posted in the Vancouver Sun.
They alleged the following misdeeds of Metro Vancouver:
There is public frustration driven by significant tax hikes tied to the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant.
The treatment facility will provide tertiary filtration to better protect the environment and meet the needs of a growing region, according to Metro Vancouver. It will serve over 300,000 residents and businesses in the Districts of North and West Vancouver, the City of North Vancouver, and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh Nation).
The treatment plant will replace the existing Lions Gate Wastewater Treatment Plant on the North Shore, one of the last plants on the west coast of Canada and the United States to provide only primary level wastewater treatment.
Also included in the program are:
However, the project is now $3 billion over budget, creating widespread concern about fiscal oversight in the region, according to Global News.
Seven elected officials have previously called for a governance review of Metro Vancouver, as well as an independent audit of the North Shore wastewater treatment project.
“Start answering questions that the public are asking, and start giving them some responses to why this project went so much into the financial ditch,” Daniel Fontaine, New Westminster City councillor, said in a previous Global News report. “We still don't have answers, and this audit and the governance review will at least be a start in getting us towards that.”
In the same report, Jerry Dobrovolny, chief administrative officer of Metro Vancouver, said that he is not against the provincial government conducting a governance review of Metro Vancouver.
“That's for the province to decide and that's for the board to discuss,” he said. “My responsibility is to make work, whichever model we have.”
It’s time for a complete governance and core review of Metro Vancouver, said the councillors, “to ensure that taxpayers are getting the best bang for their buck. We need to dial back some of the significant scope creep that has quietly afflicted Metro Vancouver the past few decades…
“The time for the premier and minister of Municipal Affairs to step in and begin resolving this governance and financial mess is now. Let’s hope the most recent revelations of wasteful spending and questionable governance have once and for all caught their attention.”
BC Conservative Leader John Rustad told Global News that when it comes to the future of Metro Vancouver, “everything is on the table”.
“I know one thing: the taxpayers are not happy.”