B.C.’s total debt continues to rise and is expected to be $47.8 billion by the end of the current fiscal year and $55.9 billion by the end of 2012-13. But that is not stopping advocates for expensive capital projects from floating those ideas in front of premier-designate Christy Clark.
Ron Stern, who heads the Vancouver Concert Hall and Theatre Society, pitched a proposal March 4 to build a $220 million underground concert hall on the current Vancouver Art Gallery site. Two-thirds of the project’s cost would come from government.
Vancouver city councillor and potential future mayoral candidate Suzanne Anton also entered the fray last week by suggesting that TransLink should not only build the long-promised $1.4 billion Evergreen Line but also quickly follow that up by building an underground SkyTrain from VCC-Clark station to Arbutus Street.
Anton did not have an exact cost estimate for her proposal.
“It’s not as expensive as going all the way to UBC,” she said.
The proposal to build a 12.6 kilometre SkyTrain line out to UBC by 2020 has been estimated to cost $2.8 billion.
Others advocate spending billions on hospitals and schools.
This at a time when the province recently racked up bills such as:
- $1.1 billion for the South Fraser Perimeter Road;
- $800 million for the Sea-to-Sky Highway upgrade;
- $2 billion for the Canada Line;
- $836 million for the new Vancouver Convention Centre; and
- $458 million for a new roof at B.C. Place stadium.
Requests for new capital spending fall flat with debt-control activists such as Laura Jones, vice-president for B.C. and Yukon at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
“What capital project doesn’t sound like a good idea?” Jones asked. “But spending needs to be controlled. Debt is ballooning, and it’s time for a capital-spending freeze.”