Premier Gordon Campbell said that TransLink's decision to reject the RAV Line baffles him. The failure of yet another P3 experiment must be an embarrassment for the Premier. According to Campbell, the "BAFO" (best and final offer proposals) process should have been completed. Campbell reiterated his blind faith that the private sector would assume the risk and the cost would come down through negotiation. The truth is that the municipal tax base would be responsible for the full risk of all cost overruns. Campbell did not offer to save the municipalities harmless in exchange for approving his scheme. The RAV Line did not receive the kind of blank cheque treatment that has been guaranteed for any overruns the 2010 games may experience. Cost overruns for RAV would come out of the narrow municipal tax base, mainly property taxes. Cost overruns for 2010 will come out of the provincial tax base, including resource revenues.

The Provincial Government, TransLink (the Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority) and the Vancouver International Airport Authority agreed to provide $300 million each to the RAV Project in 2003 dollars. On the eve of TransLink's decision, the federal government upped its offer to $450 million. How can it be that regional politicians turned down a total of $1.05 billion in transit funding from the airport, provincial and federal authorities? Perhaps it is because they are financially responsible and know that the project was already in the red before any of the usual cost overruns associated with tunneling had emerged.

In an attempt to salvage something from the failed project, some Campbell apologists attempted to politicize TransLink's decision with cries that it was based on a flawed decision structure or on philosophical objections to public-private-partnerships. The Vancouver Board of Trade's Darcy Rezac called on Campbell to restructure the TransLink board so as to include more business interests and to consider taking over the RAV project. Of course, Rezac was silent on the point of whether he would also see the province dump cost overruns onto municipal taxpayers with no democratic process to authorize the taxation. Rezac is right about one thing, if Campbell doesn't like the structure of TransLink which was created by provincial legislation in 1998, he can change it with a stroke of his legislative pen. It is likely that Campbell will want to keep TransLink as a political scapegoat, but to his disappointment, he may find that the public supports the Board's decision.