Business owners along Cambie Street looking for financial help because of business lost due to the disruption caused by the Canada Line construction may be out of luck.

Jane Bird, the president and CEO of Canada Line Rapid Transit, said the issue is far bigger than the Canada Line, and the decision is up to the provincial government.

Canada Line construction has cut a divide in Cambie Street's business district for more than a year.
(Lisa Johnson/CBC)

"It would be a significant departure from anything we've ever done in the country," Bird told CBC News on Tuesday morning. "In the history of B.C. … no level of government and no administration, Social Credit, Liberal, NDP, have ever paid compensation for construction inconvenience."

If the province decided it wanted to offer compensation there is no legislative framework that would enable it to offer cash to businesses inconvenienced by construction, said Bird.

Mayor reannounces delayed funding

Meanwhile, the mayor's promise of $2 million dollars to improve the troubled neighbourhood may be no news at all.

In a newspaper article published Tuesday, Mayor Sullivan announced the city would spend $2 million dollars to improve lights and benches along areas affected by construction, and asked the province to match the funds.

But the pledge of $2 million dollars is actually a reannouncement of funding for improvements that are already behind schedule.

NPA city councillor Suzanne Anton told CBC News the $2 million was already approved as part of the city's 2006 to 2008 capital plan, and the city held a series of public workshops in April asking how the money should be spent.

According to the plan presented then, street restoration in Cambie Village was supposed to start this past summer, but none of that work has yet begun, as much of the neighbourhood remains a construction site.

The Canada Line, a 19-kilometre rapid transit route, will connect downtown Vancouver with suburban Richmond and Vancouver International Airport. The $1.9-billion construction project is scheduled to be completed by 2009, in time for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.