Columnist Vaughan Palmer in today’s Sun: Tall orders, little wiggle room in premier’s mandates.
Transportation Minister Todd Stone is directed to work with the TransLink mayors’ council to “develop improvements to the governance structure and identify funding options to provide additional resources to fund transit in the Lower Mainland.”
His hands are tied in one critical respect: “Any new funding source would need approval from voters through a referendum no later than the 2014 municipal election.”
Not likely would such a referendum pass.
Really? They why would the Premier insist on it? And why would mayors spend political capital to craft an initiative requiring significant tax increases that will be on the ballot at the same time their constituents have to decide whether they will vote for them? Supportive incumbents would become sitting targets for any competitors who wanted to run on an anti-tax platform.
Or if their hands are tied, if a ballot measure must appear, why would local politicians put their support behind it? Why not take the same distant stance as the Province? “You decide, voters; we’re neutral.”
If failure is likely, who, in fact, would be behind a yes campaign? Where will the money come from to mount the major media campaign that would be necessary to promote the measure? Will the appointed TransLink Board even take a position, much less allocate the millions needed?
So if failure is likely, why start in the first place? (Which raises the suspicion that the whole point of the exercise is to take transit funding off the table without incurring a backlash.)
That’s why I’m offering these questions for comment. We need some discussion on the viability of an initiative before we even move on to the details of the proposition.
Namely:
Can a referendum that proposes tax increases for transit be won? Can an agreement be struck, wording crafted and a campaign mounted in 500 days?
If not, then what?
Can a referendum on transit taxation be won? Yes.
Is that Christy Clark’s goal in holding one? I highly doubt it.
Even if I believed that Christy Clark genuinely supported expanded transit development, her demonstrated record of competence (or lack thereof) wouldn’t leave me feeling all that confident that this will happen.
Adding together the anti-taxation fanatics and the “I’m voting ‘no’ to send Translink a message!” will almost certainly provide a large base of votes. All the Government has to do is offer two reasonably good options to divide Transit supporters and it will be easy enough for the ‘No’ side to emerge as the biggest plurality. There are too many ways that this can be gamed to let the Province walk away scot-free from having to do anything further in Metro Vancouver.
Metro Vancouver has actually a fairly enviable record compared to Canada’s other big cities for the construction of new rapid transit. Every other metropolitan region has had long gaps with little progress made in either planning or construction. While a lot more needs to be done in the Metro this has formed a good base to build for the future.
Christy Clark’s inane promise to make BC ‘debt free’ will likely ensure that this referendum is structured to provide her government with a way to scuttle any further significant capital investment in rapid transit. Translink will most likely be restructured around its primary function: building toll bridges across the Fraser.
I very much hope that I am wrong but everything thus far convinces me that the Province is set on this course. If things continue along their present path, the election of Christy Clark and the BC Liberals will likely go down as an unparalleled self-inflicted disaster.
IMO a lot of the resistance to taxes and TL spending has been championed by a number of metro vancouver mayors.
Let’s get some sound bites:
“{ToL mayor Rick) Green said South of Fraser residents are underserved by transit and tapped out on what they can pay.
“I’m hearing it loud and clear,” he said. “People have just had enough.”
…
(burnaby mayor) Corrigan said the province will only grant real reform if the mayors take a stand and freeze the flow of new cash to TransLink.
“You cannot go on being treated like sheep,” he told other Metro mayors. “We have to have our own Boston tea party.””
http://www.bclocalnews.com/news/131346338.html
mayors want more local input of TL. Victoria cannot insist on top-down control and duck big but unpopular initiatives like a car levy. IMO we shouldn’t go the megacity route like toronto, so getting a mayor’s council consensus, then having them promote it for a metro referrendum seems to be a reasonable compromise.
This Transit referendum will get me to actually vote in municipal elections. After all, in Burnaby there is very little to vote for with Derek Corrigan being declared a de-facto emper.. I mean mayor for live…(I have this mental image of Derek sleeping (like Smaug) in some giant safe on the top of a heap of Burnaby’s $650 mil reserve fund)…
Anyhow, I think that you overestimate the strength of the “no” side. When you look at Vancouver Sun or News 1130 articles about Transit/Translink and look at all the comments you would think that we live in the most conservative place on Earth.The reality is different when elections come about (see Vision re-election and recent Liberal victory). When Vision introduced those bike lanes all the comments in papers and radio were so negative that one would have though that they would stand no chance at getting re-elected. However, it turned out that Vision easily won the next election. So, I think that negativity is limited to small number of vocal cranks who are against everything all the time. The majority of the population is much more progressive.
As long as “yes” side runs a smart campaign (centered around economy and congestion) and comes up with a proposal that would lead to transit improvements in both Surrey and Vancouver at the same time while throwing a bone to the drivers (in my previous comment I mentioned free transit passes) the “yes” side can win.
The other important fact is that referendum gives us a chance to finally resolve this issue once and for all. Mayors, Translink and the province have been at this for almost a decade (if my memory serves) without anything to show for. Yes, there is a risk that “no” side wins, but the rewards for winning are huge.
I think it will be hard, but if there is resources for a huge and successful campaign, and if the public can be brought to understand the different visions of Metro Vancouver in 30 years presented with the options, then maybe it’s winnable.
If you ask people whether they want to see vibrant streets that people are happy to walk and cycle that are served by frequent high quality transit or whether they want to see a future with wide roads, fast food and big box stores everywhere, they would probably choose the first.
If you ask people whether they want to pay extra to expand transit or leave things as the status quo, of course they are going to say choose the first.
I think the only way to ask is to ask leading questions- and to make sure that these leading questions are based on the truth- because the truth is that if plan transportation for cars, we’ll get cars- and if we plan for people, people and their wallets will benefit.
Excuse me if this has already been mentioned, but what, exactly, would be the question(s) that such a referendum would ask?