Fabricating Yarns about the Fabrication Yard

The recent decision by IRAC to allow D. P. Murphy to establish a new gas station and food complex in Borden-Carleton has shocked a lot of Islanders, including me.

I’m now boycotting D.P. Murphy’s group of companies, so let’s get that bias out in the open from the get-go. All researchers and writers have a ‘bias,’ by the way, although we’re seldom told about them upfront.

To be meaningful, research needs to have a purpose, hopefully a useful one for others, but again, that’s also seldom the case.

When I downloaded the written IRAC decision giving Murphy the big “thumbs up,” it had so many backroom fingerprints on it I had to run it through a “de-smudger” filter just to read it!

That terrible decision is being appealed, and I commend Chad for taking this action, despite the burden and cost in doing so.

I know I’m one soul in a sea of Islanders standing squarely behind Chad in his Appeal, along with the residents of Carleton-Borden, saying a loud “no!” to this attack on the right to self-determination belonging inherently to these Island citizens.

Controlling people’s lives is both undemocratic and immoral

There’s a fundamental principal of Catholic social teaching that’s one of the four “pillars” of Catholic social ethics called the “principle of subsidiarity”. It’s a good one anyone and everyone should get behind.

It holds that matters should be handled by the smallest, lowest, or least centralized competent authority rather than by a higher or more distant central authority.

It asserts that higher-level organizations (such as the provincial government, or PEI crown corporations such as Innovation PEI) should only intervene to support lower-level units (such as families, individuals, or local communities) when those units are unable to perform a task themselves. 

What we see happening in Borden-Carleton is simply a very public and clear expression of a system of control embedded within our government that completely ignores this fundamental moral principal.

It is given incarnation and force in the form of a handful of big-money, big-decision Boards usually packed with bureaucrats no one knows or hears about, operating petty much autonomously from government as Crown Corporations.

Agencies such as Finance PEI; Innovation PEI; Island Investment Development Incorporated (IIDI) responsible for immigration; and of course IRAC.

They all have almost complete control over the decisions that should belong to local community residents, or, depending on the nature of the matter and decision, all Islanders.

This System does not allow for “transparency”

Despite continued assurances of “transparency in the process” being made by politicians regarding the future of the Fabrication Yard, as you’ll hear in a video clip of  on the Fabrication Yard taken from Question Period in the PEI legislative assembly a little later, it’s impossible.

Government is not making this decision.

Innovation PEI is making this decision .

Innovation PEI makes their decisions behind-closed-doors with RFPs.

If community citizens were deciding their own communities development strategy based on their own vision for the future, allowing transparency would compel community participation that is, quite frankly unwanted, so it doesn’t happen (check the record on major decisions to confirm).

Despite all the poli-talking like parrots with repetitious, empty “we’ll keep you posted and involved,” and “we’re here for you,” sloganizing, what the “deciders” at Innovation PEI actually have in mind when thinking about whether a financial project is worthy of support for sites they own like the Fabrication Yard is the good of the BUSINESS community, not the good of the community.

Brad Colville, the CEO of Innovation PEI, tells us that in the closing paragraph of his letter introducing the most recent annual report:

The way that sentence would read if the residents of particular Island communities who are receiving the fallout (good or bad) from such decisions were what the deciders at Innovation PEI had in mind guiding decisions would be something like:

“With direction from your Department, Cabinet and our private sector Board of Directors, Innovation PEI will continue to support the growth, diversification and strength of our ISLAND COMMUNITIES with appropriate support to our business community, making democratic and moral decisions in close collaboration with the residents of those communities and beyond in the 2025-26 fiscal year.”

Full transparency, i.e., truly bringing communities into the process with full disclosure of information, would tell the truth in advance of regrettable developments and prevent the backroom beneficiaries of Crown Corp -decisions the head’s start with getting what they want and keeping it knowing it will not be want residents want, i.e. “finding out too late”.

The transparency promised but never delivered would allow the true needs and WILL OF THE COMMUNITY to become known when it mattered – before it was a done deal .

The kind of “business-focused” guide for decisions that is entrenched with management gets carried over to the Board.

That board is not open to the public, but a private Board incompatible with such transparency as promised by the minister in the video clip below. It would make the kind of decisions we have become accustomed to seeing from InnovationPEI that have been serving business for years ,but not helping (and sometimes seriously, negatively impacting) both local residents and their communities become a lot more difficult to make!

Why?

Because such decisions are currently being assessed and judged as “good or bad” not on any community ethic, but on the interests of powerful players who are often either connected in some way to individuals on these boards making those very decisions, but .more often, to the senior management of these Crown Corporations making the recommendations to the boards, or at least in the case of Crown corporations with private board members in the composition like InnovationPEI.

The recent IRAC decision giving the go-ahead to D.P. Murphy’s plan for a new gas station was one that has been brewing for years.  We knew nothing though, but were just left wondering if rumours floating around were true.

Then in a minute, an announcement was made, and the residents of Borden-Carleton suddenly have a battle on their hands.

There remains the decision on who will be the winner of the Request for Proposals (RFP) for the redevelopment of the Fabrication Yard, and there’s lot’s of misinformation and rumours now circulating about that.

I’ve seen comments, for example, that people “heard” that the Fabrication Yard land is somehow presently owned, leased or otherwise controlled by the D. P. Murphy Group of Companies.

Not true. It’s owned by InnovationPEI, although taxpayers forked out over a million to clean it up.

Still, I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if we end up with a decision where there is indeed approval of a proposal that is somehow tied to the new establishment Murphy is hoping to build.

This article is therefore something of a resource for those interested in this unfolding story of development in Borden-Carleton, especially for those willing to become involved in a campaign to say “enough is enough” with this kind of top-down control of Islanders by small groups of private-sector people under Innovation PEI, not elected, and not truly serving the interests and the wellbeing of the entire community with people in mind, but advancing the business goals and successes of the already rich and famous in PEI.

What do we know about the whole Fabrication Yard process?

From what I’ve read, not much.

What can we known?

Not much, but enough to know what there is and isn’t currently out there to know about the issue, so we can confidently speak to the issue publicly to advance a case that a decision should be made soon, and that it should be a decision made by the community, as was actually publicly stated would be the Minister responsible.

PART 1

A CHRONOLOGICAL OVERVIEW OF PUBLIC INFORMATION ON THE RECENT PROCESS TO REDEVELOP THE FABRICAION YARD IN BORDEN-CARLETON

It took nearly 3 decades for the PEI government to finally get around to commissioning the clear-up of the Fabrication Yard in Borden-Carleton.

Then in 2021, as MLA Matt MacFarlane explains in the leadup to his first question in Question Period on March 8, 2024, there was a request for proposals, but three years after the closing date for that RFP, there had still been no decision made.

It was developer Chris Taylor, who had went public with his own proposal prior to that intervention in the House, also raising lots of questions about the process:

That was September 27, 2023.

About 6 months latter Green Party leader Matt MacFarlane asked a number of questions to the Minister responsible, Hon. Gilles Arsenault.

I’ll leave my comments on what was said on March 8, 2024 in this exchange to my conclusion, and keep going with the chronological yarn.