Vaughn Palmer
Sun

VICTORIA – Premier Gordon Campbell had a direct hand in the Vancouver convention centre project from the outset.

He, more than anyone else, decided that the expanded convention centre, like the highway to Whistler and the rapid transit line to the airport, would be part of the supporting infrastructure for hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

He decided it needed to be ready well ahead of 2010, forcing the project onto a fast track that saw construction begin before plans were complete.

When the province couldn’t find a private sector builder dumb enough to assume the risk in a public-private partnership, Campbell decided that government would go it alone.

When Ottawa wisely insisted on capping its contribution to this overrun-waiting-to-happen, the premier blithely committed the province to absorb every penny of the additional cost.

Campbell wanted it built the way he wanted everything else done, namely his way. So, in February 2003, the premier installed his deputy minister, Ken Dobell, as chair of the convention centre expansion project board and kept him at the helm for four years.

Four years of budget overruns and dubious decision-making, according to this week’s devastating report from the office of the auditor-general.

Not until this past spring — with the project hundreds of millions of dollars over budget — did the government appoint developer David Podmore (“he knows how to build big projects”) to try to get things under control.

Until then, the central role of the premier’s No. 2 was underscored in the project service plans, released annually as part of the government accountability framework. “I am accountable for the contents of this plan,” board chair Dobell would avow, in the written testimonial that accompanied each year’s update of the plan.

“All significant assumptions, policy decisions and identified risks have been considered in preparing this plan,” the statements continued. “I am accountable for delivering on the service plan and for measuring and reporting actual performance.”

Contents. Assumptions. Decisions. Risks. Deliverables. Measuring. Reporting. Dobell was accountable on all those points.

But the buck didn’t really stop with him. Dobell, a consummate public servant, was the premier’s go-to guy. Campbell relied on him, more than anyone else, to get things done, the way he wanted them done, when he wanted them done.

If the project was being ramrodded to ensure it was ready for the 2010 Olympics, it was because Campbell wanted it that way.

If the result was a budget-busting increase in costs . . . well, it is inconceivable that Dobell would not have kept Campbell in the loop every step of the way.

The auditor-general complained, in one of the most damning passages of his report, that “from the beginning of the project the board lacked a member with the appropriate expertise for a project of this specialized nature.”

Campbell wouldn’t have seen the need. He had Dobell. (Other board members included a defeated Liberal candidate and the former president of the party. Choice.)

The Dobell-to-Campbell connection needs to be underscored. As the Liberals run for cover in the wake of the auditor-general’s report, they will do everything they can to shift the blame away from Campbell.

Other cabinet ministers. Other deputy ministers. Project managers. Consultants. Inflation. Evil spirits. Any culprit will do, just as long as the trail doesn’t lead back to the premier’s office.

But that is also why one of the most revealing events in the history of this fiasco was the sod-turning on Nov. 8, 2004.

For the premier himself took charge of the announcement and delivered the words he surely wishes now that he could take back: “There are contingencies built into the project and it’s going to be run professionally. This will be built on time and on budget . . . Count on it.”

Wrong on three counts.

The budget has been revised half a dozen times since Campbell spoke those words.

Construction is almost a year behind schedule. As for “run professionally,” the auditor-general’s report supplies a number of reasons for doubting that claim.

Still, Campbell said it. And it was entirely characteristic for him to be there, taking the spotlight. Every minister in government has been big-footed by the premier at events large and small.

In their private moments, some Liberals may take a certain satisfaction in the prospect that the most damaging quote in this affair was supplied by the guy who insists on being front and centre in everything.

But that’s the downside of being a hands-on premier. When something goes wrong, your fingerprints are all over it.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

HEALTH CARE Seven Golden residents are glad they spent thousands of dollars going to India for hip replacements rather than sit in pain on waiting lists here

DOUG WARD
Sun

Jeff Dolinsky, a dentist in Golden, travelled to India in the spring — and he didn’t go to sightsee, meditate or contort his body in front of a yoga master. Dolinsky’s goal was more prosaic — hip surgery.

When Dolinsky went under the knife in a hospital in Chennai ( formerly Madras), he felt reasonably confident he had made the right decision.

After all, six other residents from the Rocky Mountain town of Golden had also undergone successful hip surgery in the same hospital with the same physician during the previous three years.

The patients from Golden are among the small but slowly growing number of Canadians flying to foreign countries for treatment — a for- profit phenomenon known as medical tourism.

The medical tourism industry earned revenues of $ 20 billion in 2005 and that figure is expected to double to $ 40 billion by 2010, according to a recent report by Frost and Sullivan, a U. S. business research firm.

The same study found that Asian countries such as India, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia view medical tourism as important sources of revenue.

Canadians who “ outsource” their treatment overseas are doing so because of frustration over the list of 875,000 people waiting for surgeries and other procedures.

Dolinsky, 48, had spent many m o n t h s i n s eve re p a i n f rom osteoarthritis. He sought treatment and was told that hip resurfacing — a less invasive alternative to hip replacement surgery — was his best option. He was also told that he might have to wait a year if he wanted it done in B. C.

A long pain- ridden wait would have forced Dolinsky to scale back his dental practice and temporarily give up downhill skiing and mountaineering, the sports that drew him originally to the Golden area.

But instead of waiting, Dolinsky flew to India. The hospital picked him up and ushered him into what it called its “ platinum ward,” which was more like a posh hotel, with its marble floors, big- screen satellite TV and laptop computer with WiFi.

“ And from the time I woke up from surgery until now, I haven’t had to take more than a couple of painkillers,” recalled Dolinsky recently.

North Vancouver’s Gloria Creighton is similarly pleased with her decision to forgo treatment in Canada and fly to Chennai. Doctors here told her she needed a hip replacement. She feared this would end her career as a dance specialist with the Burnaby school district.

Her husband learned about the less invasive hip resurfacing from the Internet. He also learned that the procedure could be purchased at the clinic in Chennai. They decided to fly to the subcontinent and many months later, they have no regrets about the $ 15,000 cost.

“ When I came home I started walking around the park down the street and going swimming,” said Creighton.

“ It’s a miracle. Before that, I’d thought that I was gone, done- in. Now I can keep teaching and not have to go on disability and be a burden to the government.”

There are about 15 medical tourism companies based in Canada. Their clients are seeking elective surgeries for such things as joint replacement ( knee/ hip), cardiac surgery, dental surgery, cosmetic surgery, cancer and transplant surgery.

These firms arrange treatment in Latin America, Europe and Asia.

Critics have said it’s morally wrong for these developing countries to foster a private health care sector for wealthy westerners when the majority of their own citizens have poor access to health care.

That hasn’t stopped the governments of many Third World countries from trying to attract western patients.

The website of the Royal Thai Consulate in Vancouver gives an overview and pricing for its medical tourism sector, which attracted 600,000 foreign patients in 2004.

Many of the Canadian medical tourism companies are based in B. C., including Surgical Tourism Canada, which brokers surgeries for Canadians in affiliated high- tech private health facilities in India, Mexico, the United States and Abu Dhabi.

Yasmeen Sayeed, chief executive officer of Surgical Tourism Canada, said her client list has steadily increased since she opened in July 2005.

But Sayeed acknowledged that medical tourism is far less significant in Canada than in the U. S., where 500,000 Americans went overseas for treatment in 2005.

The reason for the difference is cost. Americans are used to paying for medical care, said Sayeed. Canadians aren’t because of their country’s universal publicly funded health care.

But for millions of Americans who are either uninsured or underinsured, purchasing medical care overseas can be cheaper than buying it at home.

Another obstacle in Canada for medical tourism, added Sayeed, is the refusal so far of provincial governments to reimburse people who receive treatment abroad.

While medical tourism in Canada is on the increase, the number of people going abroad for care appears to be insignificant.

Sayeed’s Surgical Tourism Canada is one of the largest medical tourism firms in the country, but it has sent only about 100 people abroad since its inception.

Leigh Turner, a McGill University biomedical ethics professor, recently wrote that little is known about how many Canadians do go abroad but that the number is probably relatively modest.

Also modest is the number of Canadians heading to the United States to avoid long waiting lists. There was a flurry of media reports a few years ago about Canadians heading south for private care, but a 2002 study by health care researchers at the University of B. C. found surprisingly few Canadians travelled to the U. S.

The report, Phantoms in the Snow, said Canadian travel tourism to the U. S. was “ more myth than reality” and that the numbers involved “ appear to be handfuls rather than hordes.”

Dr. Michael Rachlis, who has written extensively about the Canadian health care system, said the number of Canadians going overseas “ is of trivial significance.”

Rachlis recalled attending a conference in Toronto on medical tourism where most of the companies involved were only sending about six people a month abroad.

There seemed to be a jump in recent years in the number of Canadians, mostly ethnic Chinese or South Asians, going to Asia for organ transplants.

Ken Donahue, a spokesman for the B. C. Transplant Society, said 136 British Columbians have received transplants overseas since 1990.

But Dr. David Landsberg, medical director of transplantation at St. Paul’s Hospital, said the number of Canadians seeking organs overseas is on the wane because many countries have recently placed restrictions on the practice.

“ I haven’t had any patients who have gone away and come back in the last six months.”

Dr. Brian Day, head of the Canadian Medical Association, is a big fan of a reverse form of medical tourism — he wants the tourists coming here.

Day believes Canada could eventually make billions of dollars off mostly American medical tourists.

The CMA head believes B. C. could attract many medical tourists from Asia. Day said he visited an orthopedic hospital in Cuba that generates $ 20 million in revenue annually treating medical tourists.

But Day’s opponents in the debate over the future of Canadian medicine are less enamoured of the prospect of medical tourism in Canada.

Rachlis, a sharp critic of private medicine, said: “ Do we really want the administrators in our system spending their time luring Americans? Or do we want them to fix the problems faced by Canadians?”

Rachlis said the money available from medical tourism would only amount to tens of millions of dollars — minuscule compared with the $ 150 billion spent on health care annually in Canada. “ It’s just a complete diversion.” Day dismissed Rachlis’s criticism, saying that Canada should only promote medical tourism once waiting lists are eliminated in Canadian hospitals.

“ We are losing all of that potential trade and the only reason we are losing it is because we have wait lists.”

He also said that Rachlis seriously underestimates the revenue available to Canada from medical tourism — money that could be injected back into the system here.

Day believes Canada could make “ tens of billions or more” from medical tourism based on the sector’s projected growth worldwide.

VANCOUVER: Acting-AG says no guarantee final price tag will be $883.2m

JOHN BERMINGHAM
Province

Don’t rule out more cost overruns at the Vancouver Convention Centre.

In his report on the project next to the Pan Pacific Hotel on Vancouver’s waterfront, acting auditor-general Errol Price said there’s no guarantee the final price tag will stay at $883.2 million — which is already nearly double its original estimate.

“There’s still a long way to go on the project,” Price told The Province yesterday.

The B.C. government rushed the project to get it done before the 2010 Olympics, he said. Ground for the centre was broken even before its final design was completed, he said.

The Vancouver Convention Centre Expansion Project board of directors estimated construction costs would rise by only five per cent a year. In fact, they jumped by an average of 11 per cent a year. Price labelled the cost spiral “a perfect storm,” adding, “The inflation in the construction industry took everybody by surprise.” Complications also cropped up during pile-driving, and there was a shortage of key equipment.

Price said the project’s board “painted a rosier picture” than existed but was slow to react when costs started climbing in 2006. Price said the board should publish monthly reports updating the public on the project’s cost.

Property developer David Podmore, who was brought in this year to see the project through to 2009, vowed that the cost will not exceed the current $883.2-million estimate.

“That is the bottom line,” said Podmore, adding that 85 per cent of the construction costs are now fixed.

He rejected the suggestion that the project was rammed through to meet the 2010 deadline. “I don’t feel that the project has been rushed, and I don’t feel it’s been driven by the Olympics,” he said. “It’s not a boondoggle. The reaction I get [from the public] is that they are very pleased with the progress of the project.”

Convention bookings have risen from 54 to 77 in recent months, equal to 1.1 million delegate days.

NDP Leader Carole James said the government “has completely mismanaged a very large project with huge costs for the taxpayer. Ultimately, the premier [Gordon Campbell] has to carry the can for this.” $499.6 million, with the rest from the federal government and Tourism Vancouver. The three fast ferries were budgeted by the NDP at $210 million, but cost $454 million.

James said the government rushed through the project, then hid the rising costs.

As opposition leader and then premier, Campbell should have learned from NDP mistakes in managing mega-projects like the fast ferries, she said.

Auditor-general’s report says government knew about cost overruns 18 months ago

Derrick Penner and Jonathan Fowlie
Sun

The provincial government knew 18 months ago there were “significant cost pressures” that could push the Vancouver convention centre expansion over the $615-million budget approved for the project at the time, according to a B.C. auditor-general’s report on the project.

Yet project and provincial officials publicly stuck to the $615-million figure until February, when Ken Dobell, then chairman of the Vancouver Convention Centre Expansion Project (VCCEP) Corp., told The Vancouver Sun the actual cost would be “in the range of $800 million.”

In July, cabinet approved a final $883-million budget, but acting auditor-general Errol Price said Thursday he can’t provide an assurance the project will come in at that amount because its “estimates of future costs are built on assumptions” that there will be no further changes before completion.

In a report released Thursday, Price said in April 2006, VCCEP briefed Minister of Tourism, Sports and the Arts Stan Hagen and Treasury Board chairwoman Carole Taylor on the cost pressures the project faced after Treasury Board’s approval of the $615-million budget in July 2005.

VCCEP’s construction manager, PCL Constructors Westcoast Inc., had called for bids on significant parts of the project as part of its attempts to nail down a specific cost for a fixed-price contract, and those bids came in about 25 per cent over budget. The first negotiations for a fixed-price contract failed.

In an interview, Price said he “would hesitate to say” government knew VCCEP was going to blow its budget.

“What we do say is that it was clear to all, including to the shareholder [Hagen‘s ministry] that there were significant cost pressures,” Price said in the interview.

Price added that VCCEP’s monthly progress reports “presented a rosier picture [of the project’s cost] than was actually the case.”

That’s because VCCEP only included information about contracts for work that had already been let, and estimates that fell within the budgets that had already been approved rather than estimates of actual cost escalation.

In his report, requested in late February by the VCCEP board to review the project’s governance and risk management, he made only one recommendation. It was that the corporation ensure monthly project reports include estimated costs to complete the project rather than forecasts “that only go to the approved project budget.”

He said the corporation should include details about assumptions that underlie the estimates, status of the significant risk factors that it is managing and a range of cost estimates if assumptions were to vary from the project plan.

Hagen, the minister responsible for the project, was attending to a family matter Thursday and was absent from the legislature.

It fell to Taylor, also finance minister, to answer questions on the project. She said government has “had flags up” about cost pressures on the project the entire time she has been finance minister, and pressed VCCEP to “to really get them to focus on making the budget work.

“I believe we were doing our due diligence by constantly sending [VCCEP] back [to look] for options and not accepting that there wasn’t something that could be done about it and pushing for fixed contracts and pushing them to get assurances on supplies,” Taylor said.

She added that government has confidence in David Podmore, a prominent Vancouver developer, who was named to chair VCCEP’s board in April. He replaced Ken Dobell, Premier Gordon Campbell’s former deputy minister and until recently a special adviser to the premier’s office.

“At this point, with [Podmore] in charge and with the [tourism] minister working very closely with him, we are confident the budget that has now been before treasury board and cabinet, and approved, will be the budget that gets the job done,” she said.

New Democratic Party leader Carole James called the project a “boondoggle,” saying the auditor-general’s report proves the Liberal government has made a mess of the project.

“The auditor-general points very clearly to the premier and this government who mismanaged this entire project,” James said. “They didn’t have a design and yet they started building the project. There was no clear management of this project.

“From the start, this has been mismanaged and the government can point fingers everywhere it wants but the auditor- general was very clear — the finger points directly at the premier and this government.”

James also seized on the auditor-general’s statement that there is no guarantee $883.2 million will be the final cost.

“It’s impossible for us to believe anyone from this government when they stand up and tell us anything to do with this project,” James said in question period. “The premier and every minister on that side have lost credibility on this entire project on behalf of the taxpayers of British Columbia.”

Maureen Bader, B.C. director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, was also critical of government’s management of the convention centre project, saying “politically motivated building changes and the rush to finish were important contributors to out-of-control costs.”

Price said the purpose of his review was not to assign blame for the convention centre expansion’s massive cost overrun, but rather to objectively detail what happened to increase costs and why.

In his report, Price said VCCEP “used appropriate governance and project-management frameworks,” although the formal project reporting has been incomplete.

His report said VCCEP faced a “perfect storm” of conditions that caused the project’s costs to skyrocket:

– A tight timeline to have the convention centre expansion completed prior to the 2010 Olympics, which compelled VCCEP to start construction before a detailed design was complete.

– Changes to include additional public amenities that increased the scope and budget of the project.

– Construction-cost inflation of 11 per cent a year during the project, almost triple the four-per-cent estimate in the project’s first $565-million and subsequent $615-million budgets.

In a response to Price’s report, Podmore wrote that VCCEP has made several changes, including adding experienced construction-sector representatives to the corporation’s board and reorganizing aspects of its management.

He also noted that the new board has concluded a fixed-price contract covering 85 per cent of the project.

Podmore said he has done a full review of the budgets and schedules, and is confident the project will come in on the new budget.

“I have a very high level of confidence in the budget, but it is going to require constant vigilance and attention by myself and the new owners reps I’ve put into place,” he said.

The centre is scheduled to open in March 2009.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

Study seeks participants in multiple sclerosis drug test

Pamela Fayerman
Sun

An old-fashioned, inexpensive antibiotic, commonly used to clear up pimply faces and bacterial infections, is about to be put to the test as a weapon against multiple sclerosis.

A $4-million study will try to confirm that minocycline pills can help stop MS in its early stages from progressing.

Up to 40 B.C. residents are being sought for participation in the B.C. part of the trial, being conducted by the University of B.C.‘s MS clinic. Two hundred individuals elsewhere in Canada will also take part.

Dr. Tony Traboulsee, a neurologist at the MS clinic, said the trial stems from animal research done by a former UBC scientist, V. Wee Yong, showing that minocycline — a member of the tetracycline family of antibiotics — has the ability to inhibit the activities of an enzyme and cells that initiate MS attacks, and that it has anti-inflammatory action that may protect myelin, the protective sheath around the nerve fibres of the brain and spinal cord.

Yong, a professor of oncology and clinical neurosciences, is now at the University of Calgary, the centre leading the two-year minocycline trial, which will begin on Jan. 1.

Yong’s earlier research, published in the journal Brain in 2002 and 2003, was the springboard for a small pilot trial in which Yong and his Calgary co-researchers gave minocycline to 10 MS patients.

Their data, published in 2004, showed minocycline had a profound effect in decreasing brain lesions in MS patients, as evidenced by brain-imaging scans.

Earlier this year, at the American Academy of Neurology meeting in Boston, the same Calgary-based researchers presented as-yet unpublished findings in another trial (also including Vancouver patients) using minocycline taken in combination with an injectable MS drug called Copaxone.

That nine-month trial, according to Traboulsee, showed “a trend towards improvement” in those who took the combination, but he said the patients in that study had more advanced disease and the theory is that minocycline is most beneficial at the outset of disease symptoms, when it can actually halt progression.

In 2001, American and German scientific collaborators reported in the Annals of Neurology that minocycline given to rats with a disease mimicking MS had a helpful effect. The authors of that study postulated that minocycline had anti-inflammatory action that was as beneficial against MS as it is with rheumatoid arthritis, another autoimmune disease for which the drug is already used.

There are nearly 9,000 MS patients in B.C. Minocycline is not yet recommended for them because it has not yet been validated in large-scale trials like the one being planned.

Traboulsee conceded in an interview that the challenge in enrolling trial participants for the study is that they must be quickly referred to the study, by their family doctors, opthalmologists or other specialists, within 90 days of their first MS symptoms. Those symptoms may include any of the following:

– Loss of vision in one or both eyes that lasts at least 24 hours.

– Loss of feeling in leg(s) or arm(s) that lasts at least 24 hours.

– Double vision for at least 24 hours.

– Loss of balance lasting at least 24 hours.

The trial will exclude anyone who waits longer than three months after the first symptoms, which means doctors must maintain a high index of awareness about the trial and its time constraints. Those who already have been diagnosed with MS will not be eligible for the trial.

“The benefits of minocycline are straightforward,” said Dr. Luanne Metz, principal investigator in the trial and director of the Foothills Hospital MS Clinic in Calgary.

“It’s relatively cheap [$800 per patient per year compared with other drug treatments that can cost up to $40,000 a year], has few side effects and can be taken in pill format,” Metz said. “The aim of our research is to see if this common drug can reduce the occurrence of further disease activity in people who have experienced an initial attack of MS symptoms, and who are at high risk of progressing to definite MS.”

Metz said two-thirds of people who have an initial attack of MS symptoms will be diagnosed with MS within six months, but if minocycline is used at the outset of symptoms, “we believe we can reduce this number.”

Traboulsee, who is on the clinical steering committee for the trial along with UBC radiologist Dr. David Li, said while long-term antibiotic use may lead to the development of antibiotic resistance, it is not considered a major concern in the MS trial because the drug is not being used to treat infection.

On a lighter note, Traboulsee noted that minocycline is often prescribed for acne, and participants in the pilot study commented that their skin looked lovely while taking the pills.

“We can’t use that as a selling point to promote the trial,” he said, “but certainly, anecdotally, that came up often.”

The minocycline trial, sponsored by the MS Society of Canada, is also going to run at the MS clinic at Burnaby Hospital, where the site investigator is neurologist Dr. Galina Vorobeychik.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

Sun

What did the provincial Liberal government learn from the fast-ferry fiasco?

Very little, it appears.

That is the clear impression we get from reading the devastating report by British Columbia‘s acting auditor general on the cost overruns for the Vancouver Convention Centre expansion project, which ends with the chilling warning that the $883.2 million now budgeted for the project may not be the final tab.

Errol Price’s report is a disturbing tale of denial, incompetence, misleading reports and misplaced optimism over a period of years as the price rose almost $400 million from an initial estimate of $495 million.

It starts with a failed attempt to find a private sector partner to build and manage a new convention centre.

The province pushed ahead on its own, with contributions from the federal government and Tourism Vancouver — but with sole responsibility for any increases in the initial budget of $495 million. That figure, Price explains, was not really a budget but an estimate based on how much money had been raised for the project.

The naming of the convention centre as a venue for the 2010 Winter Olympics created a ironclad deadline for construction to be finished.

That looming deadline prompted the Crown agency (Vancouver Convention Centre Expansion Project Ltd.) set up to manage the project to start construction on the foundation before the final design for the above-water portion had even been set and before any contracts had been signed.

The Crown agency was given a tough assignment. It had to build a massive project in a hot construction market with tight deadlines.

But for at least three years, its officials lived in denial, budgeting just four per cent for inflation when their advisers told the agency the increase would be more than that. As it turned out, even the higher estimates were way too low.

By July 2005, tenders were coming in 25 per cent higher than expected — yet the agency clung to its original inflation estimate of four per cent for 2006.

Why?

It appears to have been part of a pattern set by the provincial government of trying to pretend that costs were under control, even though everyone involved in the project, including the deputy minister who sat on the board and reported back to the government, knew they were soaring.

In April of 2006, the provincial government told the project managers to carry on with the existing budget, which had by then ballooned to $615 million, without cutting the scope of the project — even though Victoria knew at that point that the budget numbers were a complete fiction.

Even though this government knows all about risk transference — transferring financial risks to the private sector through public-private partnerships — it failed to create a contingency fund for the risks with this massive public project.

At the same time, the acting auditor general noted that the government failed to provide the board with directors competent to handle a project of the scope of the convention centre.

The province now says it has addressed the issues raised by Price, with a fixed contract for completion and new professional management.

The provincial government has yet to explain why it waited until the project soared hundreds of millions over budget to take what should have been these necessary first steps.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

Mayor would be happy to talk to team about site

Brian Lewis
Province

The Vancouver Whitecaps have spent much time and money over the past few years trying to put their proposed downtown Vancouver stadium in the back of the net.

But shots to advance their cause have often been blocked by skilful regulatory goalkeeping at city hall.

So if this is the way Vancouver plays, as it has with past issues such as Wal-Mart, then the Whitecaps should look elsewhere.

Why not Surrey?

Assuming that the soccer world unfolds as many predict, and within a few years the Whitecaps graduate to the Major Soccer League where England mega-star David Beckham now resides, then they should consider the longer-term big picture.

It shows most regional growth over the next 30 to 40 years taking place south of the Fraser River and east into the Fraser Valley.

In effect, the Lower Mainland “core” is shifting south and east away from downtown Vancouver, where land costs and availability are prohibitive.

However, the Whitecaps already have major plans to build significant soccer infrastructure south of the Fraser.

The team is talking to Delta and Surrey about constructing a multi-million-dollar national training centre in either municipality.

As Whitecaps president Bob Lenarduzzi explains in a document recently sent to the City of Surrey, the team proposes to build a six-field facility with a mix of artificial and grass surfaces that would include a clubhouse, a physiotherapy clinic, changing rooms and other technical facilities.

This proposal was sent to Surrey in response to a request by Coun. Tom Gill, who says the training centre should locate on the eastern end of the 120-hectare Tynehead Regional Park near 168th Street and 96th Ave.

Gill also admits he’s been “dumped on” by some environmentalists for wanting to put the soccer facility into a regional park and, naturally, the regional district would have to be involved before anything happened.

However, Lenarduzzi also tells me that Delta is a long way ahead of Surrey in this race.

“We’ve been talking to Delta over the last year about building the national training centre there and we’re near the point where something could happen,” he said.

Delta chief administrative officer George Harvie says his municipality already has a 13-hectare recreation-zoned park near Highway 91 and Highway 10 that could accommodate the training centre.

And the city could give the Whitecaps a favourable long-term lease similar to the deal it did with the Western Hockey League Vancouver Giants, whose training centre is also located in Delta.

So why not put both the national training facility and the stadium south of the river so they’d be close together for the mutual benefit of many in the soccer community?

Lenarduzzi says the Whitecaps’ stadium focus remains on the downtown waterfront, although he acknowledges that the region’s growth is in the Valley.

But others can see the benefits of locating the stadium in Surrey.

One site often mentioned is the industrial area at the north end of Scott Road which is also served by SkyTrain. The city, the province and the private sector all own property there and it was once the proposed site for Pacific National Exhibition relocation.

“That’s an ideal location for a soccer stadium,” Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts says, “and I’d certainly like to get into discussions with the Whitecaps organization about it.”

But convincing the Whitecaps to look south for their stadium location may require skills as exceptional as Beckham bending the ball.

If you have a story idea or noteworthy item about anything going on in the Fraser Valley, you can e-mail Brian at [email protected]

© The Vancouver Province 2007

Other

Social housing, not just emergency relief, needed for poor

John Bermingham
Province

The provincial government is working on plans to build about 1,100 units of supportive housing in Vancouver — and B.C. Housing Minister Rich Coleman says he’s eyeing other projects in Surrey, Victoria and Kelowna.

Coleman was speaking Friday at the announcement by Premier Gordon Campbell of a $41-million investment in emergency shelters and homeless-outreach services around the province.

The new measures include:

– Turning shelters into 24/7 operations, which will open 500 beds during the day, with options for health and addiction treatment.

– Adding 750 more people to the rental supplement program, so they can rent in the private housing stock.

– Adding homeless-outreach services to seven communities, including Campbell River, Vernon, Nelson and Dawson Creek, and expanding in another 20.

– Contributing $10 million to pre-development costs to fast-track supportive housing on city sites.

Despite these initiatives, critics highlighted the fact that there were no new social-housing units in Friday’s announcement.

“This government has created a homelessness crisis over the past five or six years,” said NDP housing critic David Chudnovsky. “Of course we need shelters, but shelters are not homes. They are emergency relief for people.”

Pivot Legal Society spokesman David Eby said he’s concerned police will use the 24/7 shelters to sweep the streets of the homeless, prior to the 2010 Olympics.

“People won’t see as many homeless people, because they’ll be moved into the shelters by police and by security,” said Eby.

“I can see that acting as a tool, a place for police to put homeless people, to keep them out of the way of Olympic spectators. It’s a pattern that we’ve seen in other Olympic cities.”

Coleman said he’s in talks with the City of Vancouver to turn 12 city-owned sites into supportive housing, mostly in downtown south and the Downtown Eastside. He’s already involved in three projects in Vancouver, for almost 300 housing units. Coleman also said he has two projects in Surrey, three in Victoria and one in Kelowna.

“Bring us your sites,” said Coleman. “We will look at the opportunities. We’ll look at the need in the community.”

Coleman wants to speed up the zoning and building design process, to have a number of projects under way within the year.

Vancouver has previously offered the province a dozen sites for a 60-year lease with nominal rents and no property taxes.

“We’ll have it ready to go, then we’ll find the partners, so that we can get it done quicker,” he said.

Building 1,500 units could cost $300 million, Coleman said. The province won’t fund all the development costs, he said, but will ask private investors and charitable foundations to invest.

“If you want to put up a million, we’ll put up a million,” he said. “This is the beginning of the line. There’s more to come.”

Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan, whose goal is to halve homelessness in the city by 2010, was beaming at Friday’s gathering.

“It looks like many more of the city sites will be developed, and that is great news,” he said. “As of today, the tide is turned.”

Karen O’Shannacery, who runs the Lookout shelter at Yukon and 5th Avenue, said outreach services are vital to breaking the cycle of homelessness.

“The commonality between all people who are homeless is that they are facing really serious issues,” said O’Shannacery. “What they need is people’s help to overcome their issues.

“The shelters and outreach services are really a safety net. They are a path out of homelessness.”

© The Vancouver Province 2007

 

But critics want to see the government commit to building more social housing

Jonathan Fowlie
Sun

Emergency homeless shelters across the province will soon have funding to open their doors 24 hours a day, Premier Gordon Campbell announced Friday as he rolled out details of his government’s new $41 million provincial housing program.

“We want to try to help people remove themselves from [the] cycle of homelessness which is so devastating in all of their lives,” Campbell said, adding the province is also committing money for outreach workers to help people find social and medical services.

With the world’s attention on its way to Vancouver for the Winter Games in 2010, and the shortage of social housing an increasingly volatile issue in B.C., the announcement is another move by Campbell to try to show his Liberal government can better deal with the housing challenge than the rival New Democratic Party.

“We’re not at the end of this but we’ve made real progress in the last year and we are going to continue to build on that,” Campbell said Friday, flanked by Rich Coleman, Minister of Forests, who is responsible for housing.

The two explained that by April, all of B.C.’s emergency shelters will be open 24 hours a day, meaning people who use them will not have to line up for a bed at night, or be put back on to the streets first thing in the morning.

They added there is also $1.1 million to help an extra 750 people pay for rent, and $500,000 allotted specifically for aboriginal outreach.

Coleman said the announcement secures B.C. as a national leader in tackling a homelessness.

“There is not a jurisdiction in this country that you can find that is [as] advanced on housing as we are in British Columbia today,” he said.

Housing advocates across Vancouver were critical.

“There’s not one unit of housing in [the announcement],” said Jean Swanson of the Downtown Eastside’s Carnegie Community Action Project.

“A 24-hour shelter is a commitment to homelessness.”

She said the only way to solve homelessness is to build housing.

David Eby of the Pivot Legal Society offered a similar reproach.

“I’m really disappointed by today’s announcement,” he said. “We honestly believed they would be announcing housing units.”

NDP leader Carole James called the announcement an “embarrassment.”

“We’ve had the premier for a year saying he’s going to put together a housing strategy and here we are again with no housing,” James said. “There was nothing in this announcement on bricks an mortar for housing. It’s all temporary once again.”

In response, Campbell said the plan includes $10 million to fast-track developments for social housing in communities throughout the province — a contribution he estimates will eventually translate into 1,500 social housing units.

He said the government is speaking with municipal governments in Surrey, Vancouver, Victoria and Kelowna about potential sites, and that the province will help get those ready for development.

Beyond that there were no commitments on funding to build any of the projects, only suggestions the province would work with municipalities and non-profits to ensure the job gets done.

That was where the critics pounced. But Campbell and Coleman were ready.

“There are going to be people that never think it’s enough and I understand that,” Campbell said.

“This is the beginning of the line,” added Coleman. “There’s more to come. Wait and see.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2007