Carole Taylor: Not a fan of Canada Line P3

Former B.C. Finance Minister Carole Taylor says she was surprised by how “disruptive” construction of the Canada Line rapid transit project was to local merchants, but felt the provincial government was powerless to intervene.

It’s part of testimony Wednesday from Taylor, the B.C. Liberal MLA for Vancouver-Langara during the peak of construction along Cambie Street, at a small business owner’s lawsuit against the proponents of the rapid transit project.

Taylor said construction outside her former constituency office at 41st Ave and Cambie lasted longer than two years.

"It was far more disruptive than anyone had anticipated," Taylor said.

The former MLA insisted she tried to broker communication between struggling business owners, TransLink and the private consortium building the Canada Line, but her efforts weren’t “very successful."

Taylor said the province never sought to compensate the business owners, insisting TransLink had control of the project. And the minister was further handcuffed by a public-private partnership, or P3, agreement that, she said, placed control in the hands of TransLink and the Canada Line Rapid Transit Co.

"This particular model of P3 really concerned me," Taylor said, adding that the model saw the province holding the purse strings but none of the say on the project.

"The government gets all the blame," she said.

"I would say that this particular P3 model is not one that makes me feel very comfortable."

Taylor was the first witness called in a trial brought forth by small business owner Susan Heyes, who claims her former Cambie-based business, Hazel & Co., lost $900,000 in gross profit as a result of the Canada Line’s controversial cut-and-cover construction method.

"This case," her lawyer Cameron Ward told the court, "is about a small business that was crushed and financially devastated by the irresponsible and the wrongful actions of big business and big government."

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, who formerly advocated for Cambie merchants as an NDP MLA but now leads the city named as a defendant in the lawsuit, is expected to testify on Monday.