BC Politics

Oops, they did it again  

Kevin Falcon made a mistake choosing the overland route through Eagleridge Bluffs, and Gordon Campbell can correct it by inviting Falcon to spend more time with his family

By Kevin Potvin  

It’s hard to say you’re wrong, we all know that. But it’s especially so if you’re male, and most especially so if you’re male and white, and very especially so of you’re male, white, and successful in life, and really totally especially so if you’re male, white, and successful in life, and in politics. Just how does an elected, successful white male hold his head up and say to all those other successful white male’s counting on him that he is changing his mind, that he was wrong, that someone else’s argument suddenly makes more sense, and that he’s sorry?

The answer is, he doesn’t—at least, there is no instance in the history of mankind where a successful white male political leader ever said he’s wrong, he’s sorry, and he’s going to change his mind, and change the policy he earlier annunciated and stood squarely and resolutely behind.

This doesn’t mean that the overland route to Squamish through Eagleridge Bluffs, the totally wrong policy annunciated by, and to be forever associated with, Transport Minister Kevin Falcon, can never be overturned. It only means it can’t be overturned by Falcon.

Premier Gordon Campbell, and not Falcon, is the person whose mind can and must be changed. He will have to be motivated somehow to shift Falcon out of the Transport Ministry and move someone else into it, and then have the new minister of transport announce a delay in construction to allow himself to get caught up on issues surrounding the highway plan, wink wink. And when the time is up, the new minister can announce that a the better policy has emerged—a tunnel—without fear of being pointed at and laughed at on the golf course (the chief motivating fear of all successful white males, including Falcon).

The overland route through Eagleridge Bluffs is the wrong plan for improving access to Whistler from Vancouver in time for the Olympics regardless of the fact that it’s surrounded by residents of the richest postal code in the country. The inconsequential fact about how this is rich people’s backyards has gotten much more play in the press than any other fact surrounding the issue, including the more salient fact that the Bluffs, though relatively unknown among the Lower Mainland’s many natural-beauty-endowed amenities, is a jewel.

But besides the loss it marks to our common stock of natural wonders, the plan is wrong on the much more compelling technical and cost issues as well.

In a series of press releases prepared by those committed to defending Eagleridge Bluffs, accredited and persuasive engineers speak out against Kevin Falcon’s claims that the overland route is safer and cheaper to build and operate than a tunnel under the bluffs would be. In studies examining questions of tunnels and overland routes at many European sites, engineers there found tunnels to be safer and cheaper than overland routes, safer mostly because road conditions are dry, well-lit, and free of wildlife at all times, and cheaper because there is never frost, rain or sun damage to roadways, nor does snow have to be removed from them, and nor do avalanches ever cover them. The United Nations Economic and Social Council, as well as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, have both concluded in a number of studies that modern tunnels are safer for drivers than overland highways.

The difference in cost of construction is also debatable. Falcon has said the overland route would cost $130 million, while a tunnel would cost $200 million. But Dr Evert Hoek, whose tunnel consultancy company is currently advising the Greek government on a 75-tunnel, 680 km highway, has estimated the 1.4 km-long Eagleridge Bluffs tunnel would cost between $84 to $99 million. What’s more, legal cases remain unresolved regarding appropriate levels of compensation to pay the District of West Vancouver and the private land company British Pacific Properties for properties affected directly and indirectly by the overland route. Some estimate that that compensation could go multiples higher than the $20 million presently in the budget for the project. Of course, a tunnel would have negligible effects on private land, and would require minimal compensation. Both the safety and the cost evaluations of the overland option versus the tunnel option used by the ministry and cited by Falcon do seem flawed enough to merit another look. If nothing else, the two options seem within range of each other on both cost and safety, the two chief concerns the ministry has stated went into making its selection. But the overland route additionally involves uncertain compensation costs for land affected, and it also involves destruction of a precious and sensitive piece of nature, the Eagleridge Bluffs.

Falcon can never make a switch to the tunnel option at this point, though. He has committed too much on a personal level to his preferred overland option to be able to say “oops” now. However, Gordon Campbell, the premier, has remained throughout the controversy above the fray and is personally uncommitted to any of the options. There is a very good political reason why a premier delegates responsibilities out to ministers: if necessary, the minister can be made the sacrificial goat and given a boot to take away the sins of a failed policy with him, when that policy has to go. It’s called “deciding to spend more time with your family.” It wouldn’t be the first time this government has reversed itself, and not even the first time on a highway plan. The government backed down on advanced plans to privatize the Coquihalla Highway, and did so without taking too significant a hit on its prestige. In fact, on balance and in retrospect, one could argue that backing down in that instance had the overall effect of improving the government’s image.

The Campbell Liberals were able then to say they had made a mistake, and were able to reverse a policy near and dear to their hearts, and in the end, they probably benefited politically. The Eagleridge Bluffs plan, equally advanced, equally dear to their hearts, and equally wrong on technical, cost and moral grounds, can equally benefit Campbell and the Liberals if they can only bring themselves to say they made a mistake. For as Glen Clark found out, there is one thing that is worse than making a mistake, and that is never admitting that you did, even after the mistake becomes obvious to everyone who looks.