Vaughn Palmer: On new Fraser River tunnel, NDP hoping voters aren't paying attention

Preparatory work for the new tunnel underway beside the southern entrance to the aging George Massey Tunnel. Photo by Ministry of Transportation and T /Government of B.C.

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VICTORIA — Transportation Minister Mike Farnworth delivered a series of excuses this week to explain why the NDP plan to replace the Massey tunnel has gone more than 100 per cent over budget and fallen a full year behind schedule.

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At a news conference on Monday, he blamed “inflation, project scope, today’s market conditions and the realities of delivering a project of this size and complexity.”

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But as the week unfolded, Farnworth had trouble reconciling the contradictions in the NDP message box.

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Inflation?

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In 2021, the New Democrats issued a supposedly precise estimate of $4.15 billion as the cost of delivering the finished eight-lane tunnel by mid 2030. Today, they say it will cost $8.5 billion and the crossing won’t be open to traffic until the fall of 2031.

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Inflation in Canada has increased prices by 20 per cent between the two estimates, enough to account for a $1 billion increase in the cost of construction, not the $4.35 billion admitted by the New Democrats.

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Project scope? Elsewhere this week, Farnworth said the New Democrats had made no significant changes in the project scope to account for any increased costs.

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“In a nutshell, the project is staying exactly the same in terms of the scope. There’s been no changes in the scope of the project,” he acknowledged Tuesday.

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Then again one politician’s “nutshell” could be another’s case of financial overreach.

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As for “today’s market conditions,” Farnworth did indeed blame them for the overrun on the Massey replacement. Yet he also cited “market soundings” to justify the decision to dump the lead contractor on the project and retender it in several pieces.

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“We will get very competitive bids,” claimed Farnworth, apparently forgetting that he’d cited those same market conditions to explain the overrun with the initial contractor.

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B.C. Minister of Transport Mike Farnworth stands in the Great Northern Way station of the new Broadway Subway line in Vancouver on June, 2, 2025. Photo by RICHARD LAM /PNG

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He also fudged a major delay in the project timeline, claiming it had shifted only “modestly” and “slightly,” yet “remains broadly in line with what we initially anticipated.”

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Not so.

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The Aug. 18, 2021, technical briefing on the project said that environmental review would be completed by the end of 2025, major construction would start at the beginning of 2026 and the crossing would be open in mid-2030.

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The revised timeline for each of those exercises is now advanced by one full year, turning the four-year schedule into five years, a 25 per cent overrun.

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Farnworth calls that a “slight” change. He shouldn’t be so modest.

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Waxing philosophical, the minister tried to rationalize the difference between the 2021 budget and this week’s dramatic revision.

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“As you progress along what the design of the project is, you are able to refine your costs more accurately, and that’s where we are today,” said Farnworth.