Friday, March 6, 2026
The mayors of North Vancouver and the District of North Vancouver have issued a joint statement voicing their concerns about continued delays in construction of the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant project (NSWWTP).
“On March 5th, we sat down with Premier David Eby in Victoria to deliver a message on behalf of the 130,000 people we represent: the status quo at Metro Vancouver is no longer acceptable. North Shore residents cannot afford to wait any longer for change,” the statement from North Vancouver mayor Linda Buchanan and District of North Vancouver mayor Mike Little said.
The mayors said they brought three requests to Eby: “a public inquiry into the NSWWTP cost overruns under the Local Government Act; an arm’s-length governance review of Metro Vancouver; and a fairness mechanism so that no municipality can ever again be held to a cost-sharing formula applied to costs that were never contemplated when the agreement was made.”
The NSWWWTP was originally budgeted for $700 million in 2017 and the cost has since risen to $3.86 billion.
“We are not disputing the formula for the original budget of $700 million. We are disputing Metro Vancouver treating a cost-sharing formula like a blank cheque,” the statement said.
“When Metro Vancouver approved its cost-sharing formula, municipalities could calculate their own costs from a defined budget and scope. There was no open-ended commitment to absorb whatever cost overruns Metro Vancouver incurs, no matter how far a project drifts. The North Shore bears 37 per cent of this project’s costs while representing approximately 8 per cent of Metro Vancouver’s population,” the mayors added.
North Shore residents face additional costs of $590 up to $1128 by household per year for 30 years, the statement said, and “some cost impacts, including decommissioning and remediating the existing site, remain unquantified.
“These additional costs are higher than the City of North Vancouver could indebt itself under the Community Charter and would leave the District of North Vancouver with little flexibility to address its 10-year investment needs,” it added.
The mayors added while local governments in B.C. are required to meet strict requirements before taking on long-term debt, Metro Vancouver, the organization responsible for the NSWWTP operates under a provincial statute which allows it to borrow and then assign the debt to member municipalities.
“Our residents bear the financial burden of Metro’s borrowing decisions without the democratic safeguards that provincial law otherwise guarantees. That is a fundamental accountability gap,” the mayors said.
