The TPA continues to announce its determination to pursue a tunnel – most recently at its annual general meeting last week.

Here’s what we know, at this point:

First - federal funding's a no-go. Time's past for that, given Harper's deficit-slaying penchant.

Hence the TPA’s talk about a public-private partnership. Borrowing private money by mortgaging its public assets, relying on an income stream from passenger user fees to pay the loan back.

What private lender would advance money for this, given Porter’s dismal prospects and the TPA’s impending property tax bill, that will surely bankrupt it.

This dog will cost far more than the projected $45 million (up from the original $38 million that McQueen put out). Remember that the cancelled bridge was to cost $22 million in 2003. The TPA's own consultants, Dillon Consulting, in 1998, stated:

It was concluded that a moveable bridge is the most practical form for the Fixed Link due to the significant land based effects associated with the long ramps for either the shallow or the deep tunnel and the high costs associated with the tunnel (i.e., in the order of 400% higher).

So we’re talking closer to $100 million.

And what’s the benefit?

It will require an elevator ride down seven to twelve stories, a walk across to the other side (admittedly with a moving sidewalk), and another elevator ride up the same distance.

How many people will opt to use it when the ferry ride is only 90 seconds? Not very many.

If the justification is bad weather, then the planes won’t be flying anyway, which point was made so effectively at the only public meeting to date on this issue, in March. The TPA confirmed at that meeting that the ferries will still run.

The benefit is so slim that rational analysis suggests it’s a waste of money.

Perhaps the point is that the TPA just wants to show it can do whatever it wants, and  waste as much public money as it decides, and no one can do anything about it (as the Air Canada loss this week illustrates so well).

Is there any other more persuasive reason for this scheme?

If you’re going to spend $100 million on purportedly public infrastructure, there are far preferable places to spend it – short-haul flights will be doomed when we get serious about dealing with climate change (and we must) – or when fossil fuel prices spike out of control due to supply problems – or both.

Plus this tunnel EA now underway is entirely flawed – this IS part and parcel with airport expansion, and they aren’t taking any account of the environmental impact of airport expansion in their current EA.

The law is reasonably clear on that - we may well have to challenge that in the courts.

Here’s the law:

Every screening of a project shall include a consideration of the following factors:

(a) the environmental effects of the project, including the environmental effects of malfunctions or accidents that may occur in connection with the project and any cumulative environmental effects that are likely to result from the project in combination with other projects or activities that have been or will be carried out [my emphasis]

The Supreme Court of Canada[1], in January 2010, in the Red Chris Mine case affirmed the obligation to include in an EA the entire project, not just apart

[at para. 39 to 42 of the Court’s decision]:

The [Responsible Authority – here the TPA] or Minister’s discretion to scope a project and to scope the environmental assessment is outlined in s. 15.

Section 15(1) grants the discretion to scope to either the Minister, in the case of mediation or a review panel [not applicable as yet to this EA], or the RA.  However, the exercise of this discretion is limited by s. 15(3).

Section 15(3) provides that an environmental assessment of a physical work shall be conducted in respect of every “construction, operation, modification, decommissioning, abandonment or other undertaking” in relation to the project.

…The minimum scope is the project as proposed by the proponent…

It follows, then, that the scoping discretion under s. 15(2) and (3) acts as an exception to the general proposition that the level of assessment is determined solely based on the project as proposed by the proponent.  The Act assumes that the proponent will represent the entirety of the proposed project in relation to a physical work[our emphasis].

However, as noted by the government, a proponent could engage in “project-splitting” by representing part of a project as the whole, or proposing several parts of a project as independent projects in order to circumvent additional assessment obligations [our emphasis].

Brian Iler