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LETTER: The costs of government’s infrastructure

Letter to the editor
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Send your letters to newsroom@clearwatertimes.com.

To the editor,

When John Horgan first announced the building of a billion-dollar museum to replace the one in Victoria, a friend of mine and I tried to rationalize this. Oh, it will be good for tourism, etc.

However, in the end, we had to admit: The building of a new Indigenous-themed museum was a good idea - for another time.

At the present, when our medical system is running short and post-pandemic with the huge expenses to be paid off, it’s not the time to be building big, expensive entities, like a new museum.

Fortunately, Horgan himself in the end realized this. Of course, he, unlike, say, Gordon Campbell, doesn’t have protection of the corporate media. When Campbell was fleeing B.C. after the debacle of the HST, the editorials pages of some papers were still trying to defend him.

Just after Horgan announced his museum plans, Kevin Falcon made a reference to Glen Clark’s Fast Ferries - a comparison one might say. Well, fair enough, but possibly the biggest boondoggle in B.C.’s history happened under Falcon’s watch: the Port Mann Bridge.

When the idea of expanding or replacing Port Mann came out, it was pointed out that since the then-present bridge had plenty of life in it (they don’t build ‘em like they used to), why not build another bridge alongside, it was traffic volume that was the problem, having one bridge handle the traffic one way and the other bridge handle it the other way?

But no, perhaps thought he was building a monument to himself.

Anyway, the over $2 billion contract was handed to Peter Kiewit Sons Co. from Calgary. They also got the job of dismantling the old Port Mann bridge.

Now, I’m not dumping on Kiewit Sons’ ability to construct or deconstruct, but the cost the Port Mann went from just over $2 billion to well over $3 billion final total.

However, there was no outcry, unlike Clark’s Fast Ferries. The price tag on the Port Mann bridge produced no outrage.

Well, okay, thousands of vehicles pass over the Port Mann every day, but it could have been done at a far less cost to the taxpayer.

Dennis Peacock,

Clearwater, B.C.



newsroom@clearwatertimes.com

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