The Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre is expected to lose $3,343,000 this year, but if you believe the Campbell government, the Vancouver Convention Centre Expansion Project is forecast to breakeven when in opens in fiscal year 2009-2010. It will be February 2008 before the government is required to produce a service plan that projects the bottom line for the Expanded Convention Centre beyond 2010. Don't be surprised if the red ink that flows from the operations of the current Centre becomes a torrent with the Expanded Centre, but you won't see that in Public Accounts for four or five years. Ongoing loses is one of the big differences between the Fast Ferries and the Convention Centre Expansion Project. Hemorrhaging from the Fast Ferries stopped when they were sold through public auction; there is no end in sight for the flow of red ink from the Convention Centre Expansion Project.

Cost overruns for the Convention Centre Expansion long ago exceeded any records set by the Fast Ferries. The Auditor General's 1999 Review of the Fast Ferry Project said: "The total cost for the project has risen to an estimated $463 million (much higher than either the original $210 million projected or the later increase to $262 million approved by Treasury Board) and delivery of the ships is substantially behind the announced schedule." The cost for the Convention Centre Expansion is now estimated as $883 million compared to $495 million it was estimated to cost in February 2004. The overrun of $388 million is rapidly approaching the total cost of the three fast-cats and is already more than 50% higher than the overrun on that project. It is ironic that from Canada Place you can look across the harbour and see the fast-cats while at the same time gazing on the latest sinkhole for public dollars rising to the West of the cruise ship dock. Two wrongs don't make a right, but with the Campbell government every effort is made to hide behind the ferries rather than to stand and be accountable for the latest sinkhole, or as one hotel executive described it, what might become "the biggest empty ballroom in town." The cost overrun might be forgiven if wild claims prove true about what the Expansion will do, but the specter of an enormous costly empty ballroom bleeding red ink won't go away.