Vancouver City Councillor

It seemed hard to believe: a panel discussion featuring the top leaders of the IMF and the WTO with the world’s labour leaders, here in Vancouver, and not a word in the media.

Yet it happened in June, unremarked by anyone other than the redoubtable Tyee.ca. Here’s my summary, published in the Aug 3 -9 issue of Business in Vancouver: [Read more →]

When the BC Utilities Commission ruled earlier this year that Terasen could walk away from its longstanding billing service agreement with Accenture, it was another nail in the coffin of the BC Liberals’ privatization plans for BC Hydro.
With BC Transmission Corp. now being reintegrated into BC Hydro and the BCUC once again shouldered aside to allow cabinet-level decision-making on energy policy, we’re pretty much back to 2001, with the exception of our new, “green” run-of-the-river independent power producers who now seem unlikely to be able to sell into California, which was always the goal.
In a recent Business in Vancouver column (June 25 – July 8 issue) I wrote about the union that has been at the centre of these developments: [Read more →]

Communities up and down the Cascadia corridor from Vancouver, BC, to Eugene, Ore., are humming with the news of record increases in ridership this year on the Amtrak Cascades, the passenger rail system that will see $600 million in improvements as part of Barack Obama’s high-speed rail initiative.

These investments could generate tremendous benefits here in Vancouver in the long term if we can maintain current service between our city and Seattle. Similar interest in north-south rail travel is growing in Montreal, where Quebec officials hope they can secure investment south of the border to slash the 11-hour rail travel time from New York to Montreal with a high-speed train.

Thanks to the addition of a second Cascades train between Vancouver and Seattle before the Winter Olympic Games, city tourism businesses saw an additional 35,000 visitors between September and April, on an annualized basis. This is equivalent to several cruise ship visits and generates an estimated $16 million in additional business, possibly much more. (The numbers come from an Amtrak study.)

But the benefits of the second train — and access to the improved US rail corridor — could be in doubt if Ottawa decides not to continue special arrangements made to secure the additional Amtrak service last year. Those arrangements expire in mid-September. [Read more →]

News that the Ontario government has asked its public sector commuter rail firm to build and operate the new commuter link from Toronto to George Pearson Airport means SNC Lavalin will not be obtaining the concession it hoped to repeat the success of the Canada Line.

The reason? The continuing refusal of financial markets to support projects that may be highly desirable but not necessarily profitable.

For similar reasons, the provincial government is working with Translink on an Evergreen Line plan that assumes Translink will operate and maintain that line, dodging the public-private partnership debate the nearly sank the Canada Line approvals in 2003.

The Canada Line P3 gave the illusion of drawing capital from the private sector. In fact, Translink must repay all the private investment and operating costs out of its own revenues.