NDP would consider privatizing BC Place
Posted April 24, 2013 9:28 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The leader of the NDP says they would consider selling BC Place if elected next month.
Adrian Dix made the announcement while overlooking BC Place.
He says they would set up a panel to review the BC Pavilion Corporation, which operates BC Place and the Vancouver Convention Centre.
Dix says the review would include the possible sale of the stadium. “If the private sector can do a better job running BC Place while freeing taxpayers of millions of dollars in losses and reducing public debt, we’ve got a win-win.”
“BC Place and the Trade and Convention Centre are symbols of the misplaced priorities of the BC Liberals,” says Dix. “Massive cost overruns on construction and renovations, along with a bungled naming rights deal, have saddled taxpayers with a mountain of debt.”
The panel would be asked to report back in three months after being put together. It would be made up of people from the private sector and community leaders.
Dix says PavCo has accumulated $1.2-billion in debt, most of that during renovations to the BC Place roof. He predicts it will have operational losses of nearly $60 million over the next three years.
He says an NDP government would rather spend that cash on hospitals or social programs.
Liberal leader Christy Clark is dismissing the NDP proposal as nothing more than a gimmick.
She says no viable buyer has ever been identified. “If the government had considered it a surplus asset and there had been a buyer that was willing to pay for it, it might have been something the government might have considered over the last 12 years.”
Clark is also attacking Dix for dismissing a plan to double the Kinder Morgan oil pipeline to Burnaby before a formal proposal is even put forward, saying that kind of attitude scares away jobs.
The BC Government Employees Union has some concerns over the proposal, as it has hundreds of members working at the stadium.
President Daryl Walker says they’re always opposed to selling government assets, and is surprised the NDP is even considering it.
“I guess the fact that they’re simply looking at it, and that there will be an opportunity to have input into it gives us a little more soles, but certainly we’re concerned about the rights of our members.”
