Business
The Runaway Costs of Government Construction Projects
From the C2C Journal
By Gwyn Morgan
Ottawa’s post-pandemic $300 billion spending orgy was coupled with the pompous claim to “Build Back Better”. As it happened, most of that spending was recklessly borrowed – stoking inflation – while Build Back Better was a dud, was discarded in embarrassment and, if recalled at all today, is told as a sick joke. Far too many planned projects now sink into a quicksand of political haggling, regulatory overkill, mission creep, design complexity and, if built at all, bungled execution. Looking at specific examples, Gwyn Morgan presents the lamentable results: far less is actually getting built across Canada, nearly everything takes forever and – worst of all – costs routinely soar to ludicrous levels. Added to that, Morgan notes, are woke-based criteria being imposed by the Trudeau government that are worsening the vicious cycle.
Not so long ago, a $10 million government infrastructure project was regarded as a significant expenditure. Nowadays, $10 million doesn’t come close to funding projects as simple as a firehall or new police station. Here in the Victoria region, a new firehall in the District of Saanich, originally budgeted at $25.6 million, has jumped to nearly $45 million over four years – and construction has barely begun. The facility will support 10 firefighters. In the Langford District, the estimated cost of a new RCMP building is an incomprehensible $82 million – and of course, nothing has actually been done yet, so this price tag will surely soar. Just north of Victoria, the cost of what was to be a simple flyover eliminating a dangerous left turn across the busy Patricia Bay Highway has spiked from its original estimate of $44 million to $77 million.
These cost increases seem big to us here on “Fantasy Island”, but they would amount to a rounding error in mega-city Toronto. The Ontario Line, a 15.6-kilometre light-rail transit line connecting the Science Centre to Ontario Place, was budgeted at $10.9 billion when first announced in 2019. A series of updates have seen the cost balloon to an estimated $19 billion – an increase of more than 70 percent – with the completion date pushed out by four years to 2031. Expect more cost increases to be announced.
These are just a few examples of municipal and provincial cost increases and overruns. The story is similar from coast to coast, with no project type or size in any municipality or province immune to an unsettling syndrome that seems to prevent nearly anything from being planned cost-effectively and then delivered on budget. Obviously, the total for all such projects planned or underway across Canada is immensely higher – surely in the tens of billions of dollars.
Mismanagement syndrome: From simple firehalls to subway sections to straightforward software, governments at all levels have lost control of costs. Replacing a small firehall in Saanich on Vancouver Island (top left and top right) will cost nearly $2,000 per square foot or $4.5 million per firefighter; the pricetag for Toronto’s planned Ontario Line (bottom left) has zoomed from $10.9 billion to $19 billion; and the notorious ArriveCAN (bottom right) consumed $54 million to deliver an $80,000 software tool. (Sources of images: (top left) District of Saanich; (top right) rendering courtesy of hcma, retrieved from naturally:wood; (bottom left) Metrolinx; (bottom right) WestJet/Facebook)
Now for the project mismanagement champion of all. Statistics Canada data show that federal capital infrastructure project expenditures totalled $24.1 billion in the period 2018-2021 (the most recent year for which figures are available). Given that Ottawa bureaucrats are famous for mismanaging virtually every project (think of the notorious ArriveCAN app, whose development blew through $54 million to yield a buggy software tool that private-sector geeks could have cranked out for $80,000), there can be no doubt that a lot of those billions were to pay for overruns resulting from a combination of sloppy design specifications and poor execution.
But now the Trudeau government has added costly “social justice” specifications to federal procurement requirements, including participation by ethnic minorities, disabled persons and diverse genders, plus other elements of woke ideology. These elements were clearly demonstrated in what I’ll call “The Great Helicopter Hangar Saga”. The following is a recollection from sources I know to be completely reliable.
The Canadian Forces’ 443 (Pacific) Maritime Helicopter Squadron’s hangar had been located adjacent to the Victoria Airport for many years. In November 2004, the Department of National Defence (DND) announced the award of a $1.8 billion contract for 28 Sikorsky CH-148 Cyclone helicopters, of which a number were to be based on Vancouver Island. A new hangar was required, which seems reasonable. DND engineers designed a facility that would meet the squadron’s needs at an estimated cost of roughly $18 million. Then they handed the project to Public Works and Government Services Canada. That’s when the project entered an ephemeral space resembling the old sci-fi TV series The Twilight Zone.
Public Works decided the hangar needed to be able to “sustain operations” in the event of a magnitude 8.0 earthquake – an incomprehensible decision for several reasons. First, 8.0 on the Richter Scale is seven times larger than the most severe earthquake ever recorded on Vancouver Island. Second, the severity of earthquake damage at any given location depends on its subsurface. Buildings sitting on soil and gravel suffer much more damage than those built on bedrock because the soft material changes from behaving like a solid to behaving like a thick liquid, amplifying the ground’s shaking. The Pacific Maritime Helicopter Squadron’s hangar was located on solid bedrock. That alone made it highly earthquake-resilient.
But the Public Works technocrats were oblivious to those facts, or didn’t care. Instead, their design demanded steel piles driven into the bedrock at a cost of $8 million. That alone reportedly delayed the project by two years. Cross-bracing of the interior wall openings added more millions. When construction of the actual building finally began, government bureaucrats specified more office space, locker and “administrative security” facilities than what the DND had considered necessary, adding more costs.
Then came the woke-related costs. In determining the contract award, Public Works required First Nations involvement both as subcontractors and in the workforce, extensive gender diversity and complete disabled access. Elevators were ordered equipped with Braille at the control buttons plus voice recognition – along with full wheelchair accessibility. Members of the military joked that all these extras must be for the “blind and disabled pilots”. By the time the new hangar was handed back to the military, the DND’s $18 million project had skyrocketed to a staggering $155 million.
Braille for blind pilots: To base some of the Royal Canadian Air Force’s new CH-148 Cyclone maritime helicopters (above, performing in-flight refuelling with a navy frigate in the North Atlantic) on Vancouver Island, federal Public Works bureaucrats took a reasonable $18 million Department of Defence design and transformed it into a $155 million fiasco reflecting Ottawa’s diversity obsessions and wokist ideology. (Sources of photos: (top) Lockheed Martin, retrieved from Navy Recognition; (bottom) The Lookout)
In July 2019, Phillip Cross wrote an inciteful column for the Financial Post entitled, “Why governments keep screwing up major infrastructure projects”. As Cross put it, “Prominent studies of domestic and international public infrastructure projects found cost overruns averaged between 45 and 86 percent.” Why? In Cross’s view, a big part of the problem is that “public projects suffer from a lack of accountability. Governments evaluate projects not according to the performance-based criteria of the private sector, but by their conformity to rules and processes.”
Cross’s points are well-taken and illustrated by circling back to our Saanich Firehall example. The new facility’s 23,476 square feet will incur a construction cost of over $1,900 per square foot (assuming the new $45 million budget is big enough). That is six to nine times typical construction costs for commercial buildings which, as this report shows, average $200-$300 per square foot. And while a firehall may well be a bit more sophisticated and hence costly to build than, say, a retail strip mall, the Saanich firehall’s costs are also wildly out of proportion to any class of construction, as the fascinating accompanying chart shows. As you can see, it lists a range of $415-$485 per square foot for emergency services buildings. Even technology-heavy, highly customized construction categories like hospitals and data centres come in at no more than $805 and $1,055 per square foot, respectively. Clearly, something is seriously wrong in Saanich and many other locations across Canada.
Outrageous by any standard: The ballooning construction costs of recent public-sector projects are many times higher than 2022 averages for all categories – even in a high-cost market like Vancouver. (Source of graph: Statista)
This evidence of dysfunctional project mismanagement comes at a time when public infrastructure spending is at record levels, dominated by the Justin Trudeau government’s $33 billion 2023-24 infrastructure project budget and sure to be made even more dysfunctional and costly by the Liberals’ surreptitious implementation of woke ideology. When will Canadians awaken and rise up against a government that defies the values of honesty and openness our country was built on?
Gwyn Morgan is a retired business leader who was a director of five global corporations.
Source of main image showing Vancouver’s Broadway Subway project: BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure; retrieved from ReNew Canada.
This article supplied by Troy Media.
Canadians must consider how closer EU ties could erode national control and economic sovereignty
As Prime Minister Mark Carney attempts to deepen Canada’s relationship with the European Union and other supranational institutions, Canadians should be asking a hard question: how much of our national independence are we prepared to give away? If you want a glimpse of what happens when a country loses control over its currency, trade and democratic accountability, you need only look to Bulgaria.
On June 8, 2025, thousands of Bulgarians took to the streets in front of the country’s National Bank. Their message was clear: they want to keep the lev and stop the forced adoption of the euro, scheduled for Jan. 1, 2026.
Bulgaria, a southeastern European country and EU member since 2007, is preparing to join the eurozone—a bloc of 20 countries that share the euro as a common currency. The move would bind Bulgaria to the economic decisions of the European Central Bank, replacing its national currency with one managed from Brussels and Frankfurt.
The protest movement is a vivid example of the tensions that arise when national identity collides with centralized policy-making. It was organized by Vazrazdane, a nationalist, eurosceptic political party that has gained support by opposing what it sees as the erosion of Bulgarian sovereignty through European integration. Similar demonstrations took place in cities across the country.
At the heart of the unrest is a call for democratic accountability. Vazrazdane leader Konstantin Kostadinov appealed directly to EU leaders, arguing that Bulgarians should not be forced into the eurozone without a public vote. He noted that in Italy, referendums on the euro were allowed with support from less than one per cent of citizens, while in Bulgaria, more than 10 per cent calling for a referendum have been ignored.
Protesters warned that abandoning the lev without a public vote would amount to a betrayal of democracy. “If there is no lev, there is no Bulgaria,” some chanted. For them, the lev is not just a currency: it is a symbol of national independence.
Their fears are not unfounded. Across the eurozone, several countries have experienced higher prices and reduced purchasing power after adopting the euro. The loss of domestic control over monetary policy has led to economic decisions being dictated from afar. Inflation, declining living standards and external dependency are real concerns.
Canada is not Bulgaria. But it is not immune to the same dynamics. Through trade agreements, regulatory convergence and global commitments, Canada has already surrendered meaningful control over its economy and borders. Canadians rarely debate these trade-offs publicly, and almost never vote on them directly.
Carney, a former central banker with deep ties to global finance, has made clear his intention to align more closely with the European Union on economic and security matters. While partnership is not inherently wrong, it must come with strong democratic oversight. Canadians should not allow fundamental shifts in sovereignty to be handed off quietly to international bodies or technocratic elites.
What’s happening in Bulgaria is not just about the euro—it’s about a people demanding the right to chart their own course. Canadians should take note. Sovereignty is not lost in one dramatic act. It erodes incrementally: through treaties we don’t read, agreements we don’t question, and decisions made without our consent.
If democracy and national control still matter to Canadians, they would do well to pay attention.
Isidoros Karderinis was born in Athens, Greece. He is a journalist, foreign press correspondent, economist, novelist and poet. He is accredited by the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a foreign press correspondent and has built a distinguished career in journalism and literature.
Troy Media empowers Canadian community news outlets by providing independent, insightful analysis and commentary. Our mission is to support local media in helping Canadians stay informed and engaged by delivering reliable content that strengthens community connections and deepens understanding across the country.
From LifeSiteNews
Pornhub has taken down 91% of its images and videos and a huge portion of the last 9% will be gone by June 30 because it never verified the age or consent of those in the videos.
Despite an aggressive PR operation to persuade lawmakers that they have reformed, Pornhub is having a very bad year.
On May 29, it was reported that the European Commission is investigating the pornography giant and three other sites for failing to verify the ages of users.
The investigation, which comes after a letter sent to the companies last June asking what measures they have taken to protect minors, is being carried out under the Digital Services Act. The DSA came into effect in November 2022 and directs platforms to ensure “appropriate and proportionate measures to ensure a high level of privacy, safety, and security of minors, on their service” and implement “targeted measures to protect the rights of the child, including age verification and parental control tools, tools aimed at helping minors signal abuse or obtain support, as appropriate.”
According to France24: “The commission, the EU’s tech regulator, accused the platforms of not having ‘appropriate; age verification tools to prevent children from being exposed to pornography. An AFP correspondent only had to click a button on Tuesday stating they were older than 18 without any further checks to gain access to each of the four platforms.”
Indeed, Pornhub’s alleged safety mechanisms are a sick joke, and Pornhub executives have often revealed the real reason behind their opposition to safeguards: It limits their traffic.
Meanwhile, Pornhub — and other sites owned by parent company Aylo — are blocking their content in France in response to a new age verification law that came into effect on June 7. Solomon Friedman, Aylo’s point man in the Pornhub propaganda war, stated that the French law was “potentially privacy infringing” and “dangerous,” earning a scathing rebuke from France’s deputy minister for digital technology Clara Chappaz.
“We’re not stigmatizing adults who want to consume this content, but we mustn’t do so at the expense of protecting our children,” she said, adding later, “Lying when one does not want to comply with the law and holding others hostage is unacceptable. If Aylo would rather leave France than apply our law, they are free to do so.” According to the French media regulator Arcom, 2.3 million French minors visit pornographic sites every month.
Incidentally, anti-Pornhub activist Laila Mickelwait reported another major breakthrough on June 7. “P*rnhub is deleting much of what’s left of the of the site by June 30,” she wrote on X. “Together we have collectively forced this sex trafficking and rape crime scene to take down 91% of the entire site, totaling 50+ million videos and images. Now a significant portion of the remaining 9% will be GONE this month in what will be the second biggest takedown of P*rnhub content since December 2020.”
“The reason for the mass deletion is that they never verified the age or consent of the individuals depicted in the images and videos, and therefore the site is still awash with real sexual crime,” she added. “Since the fight began in 2020, 91% of P*rnhub has been taken down — over 50 million images and videos. Now a huge portion of the last 9% will be gone by June 30 because P*rnhub never verified the age or consent of those in the videos and the site is a crime scene.”
Mickelwait has long called for the shutdown of Pornhub and the prosecution of those involved in its operation. This second mass deletion of content, as welcome as it is, reeks of a desperate attempt to eliminate the evidence of Pornhub’s crimes.
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