Who failed North Shore taxpayers?

The North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant is not simply a construction failure. It is a failure of management, governance, oversight and political accountability.

Metro Vancouver estimated the project at approximately $700 million in 2013. The complete program estimate increased to $780 million when Acciona was selected in 2017. After Metro Vancouver and Acciona renegotiated the contract in 2019, the budget increased again and the schedule was extended by approximately two and a half years. The resulting $1.058-billion estimate was not disclosed publicly until 2021.

By March 2024, the estimate had exploded to $3.86 billion, with completion delayed until 2030. That is approximately $3.16 billion above the original estimate, and the figure still does not include every future cost.

Metro Vancouver’s administration managed the project, but the elected GVS&DD Board approved its contracts, amendments, budgets and cost allocations. North Shore politicians serving on that board cannot claim they were merely outside observers. They were part of the governing body responsible for asking questions, demanding disclosure and protecting the public.

It would be inaccurate to claim that our representatives never objected. North Shore municipalities sought more transparency and equitable treatment in 2021, and their opposition became much stronger after the $3.86-billion estimate was disclosed in 2024. Lisa Muri publicly condemned the 37% allocation as unfair. North Vancouver councils subsequently called for independent reviews and a provincial inquiry.

But those efforts came after the project was already in crisis. Our representatives did not secure timely disclosure of the 2019 renegotiation. They did not obtain effective independent oversight. They did not protect residents from an open-ended cost formula, and they did not prevent the North Shore, approximately 7% of Metro Vancouver’s population, from being assigned approximately 37% of the costs.

Mayor Mike Little and Mayor Linda Buchanan finally took the issue directly to Premier David Eby in March 2026. Metro Vancouver’s review is now expected to report in January 2027, after the municipal election. That review is not the provincial public inquiry North Shore residents were promised would be pursued.

Responsibility is shared among Metro Vancouver’s administration, the regional board, the former contractor and a governance system built around closed meetings and weak accountability. But our local representatives must also answer a straightforward question:

What did they know, when did they know it, how did they vote, and why did they fail to protect North Shore taxpayers before the damage reached billions of dollars?

Residents did not negotiate these contracts. We did not supervise the construction. We did not approve the amendments. Yet we are expected to carry this burden for decades.

That is not accountability. It is taxpayers being required to pay for failures they did not create.