The politicians might paint it in prettier colours but have no doubt, this was the day the provincial government lost patience with Dysfunction-by-the-Sea.
It wasn’t a shotgun pointed at the head, more like Don Corleone making the Capital Regional District board an offer it couldn’t refuse: Stop the eternal dithering, let a lean, focused expert panel come up with a sewage solution, and have it in place by Sept. 30 unless you want to lose half a billion bucks in federal and provincial funding.
Oh, and BTW, all signs point to a single plant at McLoughlin Point.
What cabinet minister Peter Fassbender gave the CRD board Wednesday wasn’t so much an ultimatum as a cold assessment of reality. The project is bogged down by a cumbersome, complex governance structure, with too many cooks in the kitchen and no certainty about when the meal will be served. The local politicians have to get out of the way if the already-extended funding deadlines are to be reached.
Fassbender came armed with a fairly unflattering assessment written by two provincial appointees inserted into the CRD’s sewage process in early April. Among their observations:
• “It is difficult to determine how different roles and responsibilities lie between different committees, and where and how critical project decisions will be made.”
• “The individuals currently governing the project have not worked on projects of this scale and complexity before.”
• “No project plan exists and initiatives are undertaken without understanding the overall impact to funding, scheduling or other critical success factors.”
• “There is currently no project schedule.”
The same two appointees also looked askance at the proposal to build two treatment plants, one at Victoria’s Clover Point and the other in Esquimalt at either Macaulay Plain or McLoughlin Point. “This option was proposed in very short order … and lacks the diligence required to underpin a business case.” In other words, why spend hundreds of millions of extra dollars when you don’t have to?
They warned of the consequence of continuing to go down the two-plant path. “We are concerned that such a position may not be acceptable to senior funding partners. If such a position would not attract funding from senior government then it will be important that residents of the CRD understand and accept the potential financial implications before proceeding to market.”
It was also made clear that potential plant sites must have the proper zoning in place before the project can go to tender. It’s uncertain whether Victoria’s Clover Point or Rock Bay sites could be rezoned in time to meet the September deadline; indeed, the presence at Wednesday’s meeting of a dozen sign-waving, button-sporting opponents of the Clover Point option was an indication of what a rough ride that plan would get.
In fact, the only properly zoned, CRD-owned site is at McLoughlin Point — the very property whose use as a sewage-plant location was blocked by Esquimalt in 2014, tipping the row of dominoes that finally came to a halt in Fassbender’s lap.
This is where it gets tricky. Two weeks ago, Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins (who is also the CRD chair) wrote the CRD board (which effectively made it a letter to herself) reaffirming that her municipality “will not support the placement of a centralized wastewater treatment facility in Esquimalt.” It would only accept a plant if another plant were built outside its borders.
In theory, Esquimalt could still block a plant at McLoughlin Point. Even if the CRD board accepted the site as the recommendation of the soon-to-be-created sewage panel (a group that will be composed of just six or seven members), that would not guarantee Esquimalt’s acquiescence.
But would the township really keep balking if doing so meant the loss of $500 million in grants to the region? With or without the grants, the regional district has a legal obligation to build the new sewage system (the two-plant price tag is $1.1 billion) by January 2021.
But never underestimate our ability to not get things done here in Dysfunction-by-the-Sea. Even after Fassbender departed his in-camera meeting with the CRD board Wednesday, the municipal politicians spent another two hours behind closed doors before announcing they had agreed to the minister’s recommendations — as though with $500 million on the line, they really had a choice.
