BC Conservatives say they will roll back uncontrolled bloat at Metro Vancouver

THE Conservative Party of BC announced on Monday evevning that, if elected, it will roll back the uncontrolled bloat at Metro Vancouver. Under the NDP, Metro Vancouver’s scope has grown unchecked and its costs have spiraled out of control. A Conservative government will put Metro Vancouver back on track and refocus it on its core job: delivering necessary world-class services to residents efficiently.

It said that spending at Metro Vancouver is out of control. The budget for the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant has ballooned from $700 million to almost $4 billion, and Metro Vancouver’s net debt hit $2.469 billion in 2025, up $448 million in a single year.

The BC Conservatives said that the board has been living large with taxpayers’ money and with no effective oversight. Directors once voted themselves a pay raise and retirement bonus retroactive by a decade. In 2023, they charged a quarter of a million dollars in international junkets, including trips to Australia and Ireland. In 2024, Metro Vancouver spent $60,000 sending 12 staff to a single conference in New Orleans. In 2025, elected officials were paid $1.26 million on top of their municipal salaries for attending Metro Vancouver meetings, and charged $3.5 million in expenses.

“Five times over budget. A decade late. $650 a year for the next several decades for every North Shore family to pay for one of the worst examples of mismanagement we’ve ever seen,” said Caroline Elliott, candidate for West Vancouver-Capilano. “North Shore families deserve accountability for the wastewater treatment debacle, but all they’ve gotten from their NDP MLAs is indifference. As Conservatives, we’ll conduct a full audit of what went so disastrously wrong under the NDP’s watch to ensure a blunder of this scale never happens again.”

Management has also been plagued by turmoil. At one point, the top three executives were either terminated, on leave or facing possible suspension. Growing calls for an inquiry have followed, but an inquiry alone is not enough.

A Conservative government will apply a simple principle to reform:

• If another level of government is already doing it, Metro Vancouver shouldn’t be doing it.
• If it can be handled by two or three municipalities working together, Metro Vancouver shouldn’t be doing it.
• If it is being done, or can be done, by the private sector, Metro Vancouver shouldn’t be doing it.

Housing, economic development, air quality and climate policy are already the responsibility of local governments and the province. These functions will be returned to the governments accountable for them, ending costly duplication.

“Every dollar Metro Vancouver spends comes out of the pockets of people who are already stretched,” said Carson Binda, Conservative candidate for Vancouver-Quilchena. “This organization now spends more on consultants and contractors, $270 million, than on its own salaries and benefits, and it’s adding nearly half a billion dollars in debt a year. That is not a utility. That is an unaccountable bureaucratic mess with a blank cheque. We’ll take the chequebook back, focus Metro on water and sewage, and make sure taxpayers get value for every dollar.”

Clean drinking water and sewage management aren’t political; they are the essential services British Columbians rely on and core responsibilities of municipal governments. If elected, Conservatives said they will protect taxpayers by cutting the waste and keeping politics out of the utility.

Backgrounder: Metro Vancouver by the numbers (2025)

• Net debt: $2.469 billion, up $448 million in one year (excluding TransLink debt and debt attributed to municipalities)
• North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant: from $700 million to almost $4 billion
• Employee compensation: $249.4 million; over 2,000 employees; top 1,700 staff average $124,000 in salary and benefits
• Recently departed CAO: over $540,000 in total compensation and bonuses
• Consulting, contracted and professional services: $270.1 million, more than total salaries and benefits
• Elected officials: $1.26 million in pay above municipal salaries, plus $3.5 million in expenses