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Old Posted Mar 2, 2017, 8:13 PM
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Genauso Genauso is offline
A hole being Doug
 
Join Date: Dec 2013
Posts: 498
Quote:
Originally Posted by CanSpice View Post
The Massey Tunnel would like to have a word with you.
The Massey bridge will be a P3, which is my point. The Liberals do not have the budget space to spend, so they are choosing a more expensive option that nominally keeps the debt off their books even though defaulting on the payments is not an option.

I think it's essential to replace the Massey tunnel, and I see the need for other improvements that will be worth more than they cost.

We're in a ship headed for the rocks, we passed the point of no return under Christy Clark's reign. Drilling holes below the waterline to slow the boat down before the crash does work in the sense it buys more time before sinking, but the consequence is that it guarantees sinking the ship.

Look at the ICBC's dividend and Hydro's water purchase account. The provincial government transfers money out of crown corporations at will, even if they have to go into debt at a higher interest rate to provide it. Then came the payday loan P3s when the crown corporation credit cards maxed out. The province doesn't want to say it, but they're not stingy out of ideology but because the money isn't there.

I guess we could still privatize liquor distribution, I'm not sure what the snafu was there.

I guess my point is the economy, taxation, and public funding in the province doesn't work any longer. We might as well start from scratch. The big RE industry won't like it at first, but we'll probably transition to municipal bonds financed by Development Cost Levies that charge $X/s.f. per category of new development until the new bridge/subway/etc. is paid off.

The upside is if that works well, we could have a more responsive system where projects go ahead when they become worth it, instead of depending on a bunch of disconnected governments coming together at the same time without any one using their power to stop or delay a project elsewhere to get what they want for themselves. The downside are all the cities in America that went bankrupt when people with little accountability played the system much like our provincial government is doing today where they set up huge failures for others to deal with in the future.

Part of the problem is that there isn't one problem. There is widespread economic stress. Reducing royalties and costs for gas, mining, forestry, fishing has not kept rural jobs even stable despite growing markets. One day everyone and everywhere will be doing a little better, so the number and scale of crises will vanish. Until then, it's balancing a million failures.

The pre-commencement period is getting longer, and the scope of work is getting smaller to not include where the lanes will head when Oak St bridge is still 2 lanes each way.

Last edited by Genauso; Mar 2, 2017 at 8:23 PM.
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