The above appears on the front page of today's Daily News and reports yet another study being done on the cost to rehabilitate the E&N railway under the care of the Island Corridor Foundation. The Ministry of Transportation had a study done by RTC Rail Solutions which would indicate the cost to bring the rail line up to a safe standard for passenger and freight traffic would exceed the $15 million that is available.
Not surprisingly Island Corridor Foundation spokesman Graham Bruce claims the government report is based on improper information which his foundations claims to counter. Sound familiar?? What's next another few hundred thousand on yet more and more conflicting reports, in the meantime ICF does who knows what with the funds they keep collecting, with nearly zero public accountability.
For those following this 'story' you may recall that back in 2010 (I believe) after extensive study the provincial government rejected the business case put forward for this rail line, which at that time was guesstimated to cost something in the order of $120 million to bring up to standard. Here we are years later, with the government basically saying the same thing, and ICF saying the same thing, and all that has happened is a lot of taxpayer cash has been set on fire.
The following appeared on this blog in April of this year, taking a look back over the ICF show which if nothing else has provided a few directors with an income.
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Just About Time For Another ICF Announcement by Graham Bruce?
It should be just about time for the Island Corridor Foundation to roll out another dog & pony show assuring taxpayers that the millions (?) of dollars the Foundation has shepherded have been for more than administration wages and benefits.
Going from memory I thought that just recently there was a $400,000 transfer of funds from the RDN to the ICF. Does the ICF have to give any credible accounting for how these funds have been and are going to be used or are they just some secret society doing as they please behind closed doors?
It is time the ICF were required to make a full and complete public accounting for what they have done these past years.
This all reminds me of the pretty, new, coming, can't wait hotel pictures (you have posted) from the great PR folk and gov't officials (who love to keep their high-paying jobs) and make-up these great photo-ops. Which, of course, are all B--- S---!
ReplyDeleteKev
What's underplayed in this post is this: the BC government announced some time ago and with great fan fare that it would supply it's share of what's needed based on information that was then current. It then stalled around and brought in yet another consultant at unknown cost who in turn stalled around and delivered a report two or so years later -- without, evidently, bothering to actually inspect the track.
ReplyDeleteRather than suggest or imply ICF negligence, consider what Ms. Photo-op (aka C. Clark) is up to: paying extra big bucks to find a way to get out of her commitment.
That's the wasteful and important shocker here and there's more to consider:
This woman and her laughably indifferent and thin on substance VI Liberal MLA cohorts are sticking it to us for not voting Liberal. You can see it elsewhere. Meantime, she's planning a huge pig-out in spending for the suburban Vancouver commuter set, including replacement of a perfectly functioning tunnel, billions more on commuter corridors to choke up Vancouver streets, not to mention the planned pay off of a new bridge in Kelowna so the poor dears up there won't have a rush-hour wait of a few minutes to endure -- and not to mention ferry fare increases and declining service on the coast while inland ferries remain FRE, etc., etc..
Premier Hard Hat seems unconcerned that she may likely have no MLAs from VI following the next election. In fact, she's already governing BC from a downtown Vancouver office building while avoiding as much as possible what she has declared to be the "sick culture" she so much deplores in Victoria.
Not since WACKY Bennett have we witnessed such tactics. But we shouldn't be surprised -- Ms Poto-op/Hard Hat has declared WACKY to be one of her heroes and role models.
Question: where is the political opposition in all this? Virtually MIA, I'd say, even though VI is its bedrock strength and the leader is from a VI riding.
More than two years after snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and less than two years from the next election, it's time the NDP stopped licking its largely self-inflicted wounds and woke up and realized that VI is in need of effective advocacy,
Ms. Clark's spending plans and actions deserve much better scrutiny and publicity with respect to her reward and punishment style of governing. In this respect Ms. Hard Hat is strictly Ms.Old Hat. Even Stephen Harper isn't as crude in his approach in trying to secure votes, which is saying a lot.. There's great fodder in all this for the opposition to work with -- if only it would just rejuvenate itself. The clock is ticking.