Kelowna, B.C. council wannabes promise to build downtown canal system

Have you ever been to Kelowna, the small city at the heart of British Columbia’s beautiful Okanagan Valley? If not, would a series of water canals running through the city’s downtown lure you to visit?

Perhaps after visiting Toronto’s epic Ferris wheel or Winnipeg’s ice roller coaster? You could take a cross-country tour of blue-sky promises made with civic elections in mind.

A slate of Kelowna council candidates is hoping voters take the plan more seriously than that, recently making a campaign promise to replace streets with waterways through the downtown core.

TaxpayersFirst, a slate of five city council candidates, released their official pitch earlier this week, calling the canal system part of the “ultimate in revitalization for our cultural district downtown.”

Sure, that revitalization strategy also includes the construction of a new downtown theatre, but the big-ticket item is a series of six canals crossing through the downtown core.

"Having waterways running through the downtown core will be an incredible experience for people who are in their boats driving through it, for people who are walking downtown. It will just take downtown in a totally different direction," said council candidate Carol Gran.

TaxpayerFirst says the project would be paid by the “P4” process – which stands for “profitable public private partnerships.”

And apparently the P4 process can make money appear out of nowhere, because the TaxpayerFirst coalition claims there is plenty of money in the bank to cover the project without raising taxes.

The P4 funding plan is really just the P3 process (the extra P stands for profit), which is government speak for getting the private sector to help pay for things.

Recently, Toronto’s mayor attempted to leverage the P3 strategy to fund subway construction. The finalized plan still included a property tax increase. Not that P3 should be dismissed, it has a history of success in Canada.

Still, funding is just one of several issues with the plan pointed out by CTQ Consultants Ltd. engineer Dave Cullen. Cullen told CBC’s Daybreak South he estimated the cost of the project at $100 million per block, making it a pretty hefty price tag for a city with a population of 100,000.

Aside from the cost, Cullen says infrastructure would have to be moved (a whole world of sewers and wires live under street level), environmental assessments would have to be completed and the lake-side downtown would have to be drained of water before the canals could be built and filled.

“The irony is you’d have to de-water. In order to do the work, you’d have to take the water away that’s under the roads, because of the low water table, because of the proximity to the lake,” he told the network.

But in discussing the canal strategy, we shouldn’t be entirely negative. Kelowna has some history of novel transit projects. In 2008, the city officially opened its $100-million floating bridge, which features five lanes of traffic crossing the Okanagan Lake.

And you don’t have to travel to Venice to see urban canals in action.

San Antonio, Tex., has a widely popular network of canals known as the River Walk that runs along the San Antonio River. The district features canal-adjacent restaurants and shops, and essentially the same cultural vibe TaxpayersFirst is aiming for.

But more accurately, the canal plan should be compared to other recent Hail Mary pitches made by Canadian politicians – like former Toronto councillor Doug Ford’s plan to build the world’s largest Ferris wheel, or Winnipeg mayoral candidate Michel Fillion’s dream of building a “Winter Disneyland” that featured a roller coaster that runs on ice and neon tubing.

Lots of promises are made when people are seeking an election win. A lot of promises can seem too good to be true, or too foolish to be real. TaxpayersFirst will have to convince locals that their canal plan is the former.

The rest of us will have to get our gondolas ready, just in case this thing comes together.