The juiciest press releases always come out on Friday afternoons before long weekends. When a company or government is forced to release something they aren’t proud of, they do it when the public is inclined to be distracted and hope the furor winds down by the following Tuesday. Last Friday afternoon before the Thanksgiving weekend, a small company in Aldergrove BC called Vicinity Motor Corporation quietly put out a release with some dire news for its investors. Here are the highlights: “The Creditors exercised their discretion not to renew the credit facilities and provided the Company with Notice of Intention to Enforce Security pursuant to subsection 244(1) of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (Canada). The Company believes that the Creditors will proceed toward receivership enforcement impeding the Company's ability to continue to operate. If that happens, the Company will likely be forced to lay off its remaining staff and cease operations. If the Company is not able to file its interim filings for the six months ended June 30, 2024 by October 18, 2024, the British Columbia Securities Commission will issue a broad failure to file cease trade order and no shares of the Company will be permitted to be traded in Canada.” Translation: The company is heavily indebted and can’t get out of the hole. On Friday October 18, trading was halted for Vincinity. Small companies go broke all the time. What makes the case of Vicinity an issue is that it is the company from which the City of Calgary ordered millions of dollars worth of electric buses more than three years ago. The buses have been delayed and it’s not hard to see why. The company was never making them and perhaps was always incapable of producing them. The company’s financial woes have been public for quite some time.Somehow though, the luminaries in Calgary’s city hall felt this company was worth hitching their wagon to for an electric bus pilot program. The pilot program was to cost $14 million. Some of the money was spent upgrading city facilities with custom charging stations for the buses which will now never arrive. How much did that cost? I have been asking these questions of city councillors for months as it was becoming evident Vicinity was heading off the fiscal cliff. I was greeted by silence on the issue. While councilors likely have a good idea of what is happening with these buses, it was probably discussed during one of city hall's many in-camera meetings. Once a meeting goes into what former city councillor Jeromy Farkas labeled as “The Chamber of Secrets”, the attendees are no longer allowed to speak about what was discussed. The City of Calgary recently updated its website stating it had ended its contract with Vicinity "earlier this year" and that it hadn't sent the company any money. Earlier this year must mean last month because the city website indicated they were still waiting for buses from Vicinity at the end of August. The claim that the city had not paid any funds to Vicinity is rather fishy. There aren't many situations where one can order millions of dollars worth of a product without a deposit or some kind of downpayment. The city website says the city is working to procure five to seven new buses, presumably from a different supplier. Shouldn't there be an investigation into what happened before committing to extend the program further? The site states that 14 charging stations for the Vicinity buses were installed at city facilities. How much did that cost and will they be compatible with other buses? Former Mayor Nenshi promised increased transparency at city hall but instead increased the number of secret meetings. His protégé Jyoti Gondek has continued the practice. On top of that, there is an atmosphere of deference in council chambers toward city administration. Instead of demanding answers of the city’s management, the mayor and council act subservient to it. Councillors may not know details on the project because city administration hasn’t offered any. This budding boondoggle gets worse. When the buses became delayed with the pilot project, Gondek and her supportive clan of councillors got impatient and committed the city to an electric bus plan worth nearly half a billion dollars. What is the point of a pilot program when the mayor and council will ignore it when it fails? How stupid does one have to be to commit taxpayers to a massive project when a small one has not even gotten off the ground? The mayor and council pointed to the Edmonton electric bus program and claimed it was such a success that Calgary needn’t bother waiting for its own pilot project to start, much less finish. Since then, Edmonton’s bus program has been a catastrophe with over half of the new buses out of service and the supplier of the buses also bankrupt. Citizens must demand answers now. Were the new buses for the half-billion program supposed to come from Vicinity as well? Have funds been spent on procurement already? If it didn’t go to Vicinity, which company did it go to? There is no excuse not to answer these questions. The money doesn’t belong to the mayor and council. The funds belong to the taxpayers and people are getting tired of boondoggles. There may still be a chance to escape a half-billion-dollar rip-off right now but we need to find out what is going on. Gondek and gang proved to be completely incompetent with the Green Line. Does the province need to step in with this electric bus mess too? Meanwhile, another water main has burst, the streets are lined with potholes, and property taxes are rising. It’s getting near time for a coup at the palace. Perhaps a councillor is willing to breach the rules of the Chamber of Secrets for the sake of the taxpayers. Deferring action on this mess will only let it fester and will cost taxpayers more.
