The B.C. government just announced that it has decided to build a $458-million retractable roof on top of the 24 year old BC Place stadium after the close of the 2010 Winter Games.  The government boasts that the roof will be the largest cable-supported, fully retractable fabric roof in the world.  The costs will be met fully by the government through a loan to the perennial loss generating BC Pavilion Corp., the government company that runs the stadium for the provincial government.

Just a few days before the government confirmed that Translink on the other hand will receive no assistance to make investments in an expanded transit system in the lower mainland.  Any money that Translink needs will have to come from higher fares and property taxes. BC Transportation minister Kevin Falcon said earlier this year TransLink 
already has all the tools it needs to raise the money it requires.  Translink CEO Tom Prendergast says that in that case TransLink won’t be able to run more buses, buy needed new Sky Train cars, increase road funding or add new rapid transit lines.   $458 million would buy a lot of buses and Sky Train cars.  Worse yet, over the past month the government has announced well over $400 million in cuts to womens’ shelters, arts programs, environment programs, education, home care, rehab centres, and a host of other important services.  Infrastructure projects outside the greater Vancouver area are being ignored, including a new bridge in Victoria that even the federal government has funded with 1/3 of the cost.

But the most expensive roof in the history of a sports facility that is home to 10 or less CFL football games and a still to be proved soccer team goes to the front of the line. In Montreal the Allouettes play in a open air college stadium.  The fans love it.  Vancouver never has the snow and freezing temperatures that other CFL teams endure in the fall.  But a few thousand fans must be coddled under a roof that can be rolled back when the sun shines.  Why do we need a roof at all?  If the current one is so bad, take it off – let us enjoy the fresh air like every other large field sports fan in Canada does in except in Toronto.  And do you know the story about the Toronto retractable roof?  It was a boon- doggle too monstrous to contemplate.

David Podmore, chair of the BC Pavilion Corp., the Crown company that runs the stadium for the provincial government in commenting to CBC News said that the project will be completed by the summer of 2011, in time for that year’s Grey Cup.  One hopes that is not a justification.

Podmore it turns out was a good friend and business partner of Jack Poole.  CBC News reported on October 23 that: “His (Poole) longtime friend and business partner David Podmore, the current CEO of Concert Properties, reacted with sadness Friday morning to the passing of Poole”.  Is there some connection here? Poole was the inspiration for the multi-billion dollar taxpayer funded projects now associated with the Olympics. It seems Podmore shares Poole’s love for spending taxpayer’s money on huge construction projects.

Poole was a well know Liberal, having even organized a team to make a run for the Liberal leadership a few years ago.  Poole, a developer, was the reported inspiration for the Campbell government’s addiction to big, costly and unjustifiable mega construction projects financed by taxpayers.  Does his influence in part explain this next spending folly? 

This government is proving to be the absolute worst manager of government finances this province has ever known.  No cost/benefit analyses, no matter how they are done, can justify their huge construction projects built with borrowed taxpayer money.  Their planned deficits exceed by a wide amount the totals of all other governments together in BC’s history.  And yet now this kind of money is thrown at a ridiculous undertaking that no ordinary taxpayers have ever said they want. 

And consider this.  A contract for the new retractable roof has been signed with PCL Constructors Canada Inc.  PCL built the Convention Centre that went $500 million over budget – the largest over expenditure in BC history on a single government project.  The government picked up the cheque for the whole of it, no questions asked.   Now PCL gets another project that has a starting price tag of $400 million, just like the convention centre.  How PCL got the contract has not been explained.  Nothing has been said about whether its record in controlling costs and bring projects in under budget was considered.  One can only conclude that the other bidders (if there were any) must have been a pretty disreputable lot.

Does anyone else feel that this is all a little too close for comfort?  Does anyone else feel that something more than public need may drive this government’s obsession with throwing money around as if it is free for the asking?   Does anyone else feel that this government has got its priorities wrong?  Does anyone else wonder at the arrogance of a government trumpeting this in the face of a crushing deficit and just after announcing cuts to the bone in needed services.