Just when I think I may be being a bit harsh on the transportation issue … well, there always Pete McMartin. In today’s Sun: TransLink in transit — who’s driving this train?
Transportation Minister Todd Stone … has been so bereft of ideas and so wobbly in his portfolio he needs training wheels.
And rather than lead on transit, Clark and Stone have chosen, instead, to govern from behind. They have chided the mayors. They have said “No” to the mayors. And sometime within the next year they will ask the public to vote in a transit referendum that is in reality a judgment on the mayors. What that referendum will ask, or what it will propose, we don’t know. …
Half of the B.C. population resides here: Metro Vancouver generates half of the provincial economy. Why not use the carbon tax, as we now do the fuel tax, to help fund TransLink so that we might increase public transit to alleviate our reliance on the automobile, cut down on our production of greenhouse gases and serve the million more people projected to be moving to Metro Vancouver within the next three decades?
The province’s answer?
No. Stone, in a press conference called close on the heels of the plan’s unveiling, said there was “no chance” the provincial government would approve the funding reallocation because it would take money from provincial-wide revenues.
But he would, he said, consider the creation of a new separate regional carbon tax for Metro Vancouver.
Presenting Metro Vancouverites with another tax to fund TransLink, on top of the property, fuel and parking taxes, along with fare increases and bridge tolls? Good luck with that.
Maybe it will be proposed in the upcoming referendum, where it will be sure to be defeated.
Maybe that’s the Province’s intention all along.
What percentage of the bus riding public transit users vote NDP vs Liberal ?
I am surprised to not see an increase in property taxes in MetroVan nor a fast implementation of road tolls anytime soon for massive funding injection. Both major flaws or intentional oversights !
I also do not see a curb on excessive unionization and excess pay of public sector or quasi public sector workers like TransLink and associated firms’ employees and as such it is no surprise the Liberals do not jump up and down with joy to fund an even bigger overpaid bureaucracy !
It seems fair to me to not ask folks in Kelowna, Kamloops or Prince George to fund Lower Mainland transportation issues. The time to ask ” the other guy ” to pay for benefits is over. The money has to be raised locally.
Yeah, just think how much further ahead Kelowna, Kamloops, and Prince George would be if they didn’t have to continually foot the bill for Vancouver projects! If only for once, Vancouver’s economy could generate some revenue for the rest of the province!
Oh, wait….
This government is painfully ignorant, but very consistent. It is clear as day Clark doesn’t want to invest in transit–she said so herself that she thinks the system is great as is. She doesn’t know, or care that as is means getting worse.
Everything they do is in the context of lng lng lng. The rest is irrelevant. We all suffer for her short sightedness, ignorance and utter and complete lack of leadership.
Utterly untrue. The Liberals espouse a more market oriented message, something quite new for many of the “gimme gimme gimme” folks that live off others. As stated in my earlier post: It seems fair to me to not ask folks in Kelowna, Kamloops or Prince George to fund Lower Mainland transportation issues. The time to ask ” the other guy ” to pay for benefits is over. The money has to be raised locally. The Liberals are bang on here !
Likewise Metro tax payers fund a myriad of projects in the Kelowna, Kamloops or Prince George. So I guess we should just cut them off? or let them just raise the money locally?
The proposal is to use the portion of the carbon tax already collected in Metro Vancouver to fund projects in Metro Vancouver. No stealing from the interior whatsoever.
As both David and Don have already said, your comment is a red herring. There is no proposal to take funds from the rest of the province, only existing funds raised in the Lower Mainland, and it’s not as if expensive roads and highways to and from Kelowna, Prince George and Kamloops (or transit in those communities for that matter) are entirely funded by local tax dollars.
The real problem here, however, is that the Liberals have no plan. They just say no. They deny funding source after funding source while proposing nothing, they tell others to create a plan while proposing nothing and they force transit to undergo a referendum while road expansion goes ahead without any scrutiny. I know in the past you haven’t supported that sort of anti-urban agenda, so your comments seem strange in that light.
To repeat my earlier comments: What percentage of the bus riding public transit users vote NDP vs Liberal ? [I suspect 70%+ vote NDP]
I am surprised to not see an increase in property taxes in MetroVan nor a fast implementation of road tolls anytime soon for massive funding injection. Both major flaws or intentional oversights !
I also do not see a curb on excessive unionization and excess pay of public sector or quasi public sector workers like TransLink and associated firms’ employees and as such it is no surprise the Liberals do not jump up and down with joy to fund an even bigger overpaid bureaucracy !
Just out of curiosity Thomas, what is your position on the use of general provincial revenue or BCTFA funds (both of which are funds paid into by constituents across the Province) for the construction of a bridge in Kelowna? How about Delta?
Would that constitute a ‘gimme gimme gimme’ use of funds, funded by other parts of the Province?
The Carbon Tax is paid for by constituents across the Province, how would dedicating a portion of that to a particular region be considered “asking the other guy to pay”? Pretty sure collecting revenue from across a political jurisdiction and investing it where it’s deemed to be needed is the function of government.
Funding is tight across BC as we try to shed our debt on a provincial level. BC wide infrastructure money ought to be allocated roughly on a per capita basis. I lack the expertise to state what % of provincial capital budget is already allocated to MetroVan for roads, bridges, tunnels, TransLink, water & sewage, schools etc. nor do I know what % comes from which buckets of revenue. Perhaps someone can enlighten us here ?
I agree with the statement that money has to be primarily raised locally, and not come from BC or Feds. If they chip in: great. The lack of increase of property taxes, for example, is very suspicious. Vancouver gets to gain a lot of add’l density – and thus additional future property taxes – with a Broadway subway for example, so why should the province pay for it and not Vancouver ? Residential property taxes are too low to start with in Vancouver (to buy votes) so one easy way to raise money is to raise property taxes by 5% a year for twenty years. This would also monetize the vast foreign money flowing here into real estate that pays far too little in land transfer taxes and property taxes. a $2M condo in Vancouver pays barely $10,000 in property taxes annually. It is ridiculously low. It should be double that.
Land transfer taxes could be raised 1% for each $1M up to $5M as follows:
First $1M – 1%
Next $1M to $2M – $10,000 plus 2% of value over $1M
Next $1M to $3M – $30,000 plus 3% of value over $2M
Next $1M to $4M – $60,000 plus 4% of value over $3M
Next $1M to $5M – $100,000 plus 5% of value over $4M
Next $1M to $6M – $150,000 plus 6% of value over $5M
Next $1M to $7M – $210,000 plus 7% of value over $6M
Next $1M to $8M – $280,000 plus 8% of value over $7M
Next $1M to $9M – $360,000 plus 9% of value over $8M
Next $1M to $10M – $450,000 plus 10% of value over $9M
Over $10M: $550,000 plus 10% of value over $10M
s.th. like that.
Roadtolls should start immediately on choke pints like all bridges, Granville .. but of course that is politically difficult and so they ask “the other guy” i.e. the province to do the dirty work for them and of course C Clark & Co push back and state “referendum”.
Democracy is so inefficient, and as we see from the Liberal win in Ontario voters vote themselves benefits and offload debt to future generations rather than biting the bullet today.
The debate will continue for another decade or two until traffic is so bad that we will do the right thing then, at a slower pace even than currently proposed.
As such the MetroVan proposal is gutless and lacks conviction as it asks “the other guy” to pay for it or do the dirty work (i.e. tax increases) fro them !
I like the Transport plan quite a lot.
But I am really puzzled and dismayed by Mr. Stone’s veto on using Metro Vancouver’s portion of the carbon tax to support transit and the other transportation improvements.
It seems to me that the Mayors Council would have consulted with the Prov Gov’t to get some sort of high-level agreement on this prior to publishing the plan. If they did not, then they deserve to get whacked in public as they have.
If they did such consultation, then they have been sandbagged. The offered carbon tax support has now been withdrawn in a public and humiliating fashion. The plan, the mayors and the future of the region are now in doubt and turmoil. And the referendum is a foregone conclusion.
In my opinion, this is a truly ugly situation, and someone, somewhere has made a huge blunder, or has engaged in vast nastiness.
The carbon tax subsidizes a tax cut on personal income (this is why the government bills it as having tax neutrality). To dedicate a portion of the carbon tax to public policy that actually reduces carbon, the government would likely need to either increase personal income tax (i.e. take back the subsidy), not a palpable solution for them. They’d rather have voters associate tax increases with the region’s mayors instead. Plus, with only a fraction of Lower Mainlanders being transit users, they can afford to easily dismiss them (even those who are favourable to the Liberal party).
The Province is projecting surpluses in the hundreds of millions of dollars per year in the coming years. They could easily use some of that to invest more in transit.
Around 75% of people use transit at least a few times a year. Most would use it more if the service was better. Close to 50% use transit at least once a month.
And young people use transit far more than older people. If parties are concerned about their political future, they better start investing in transit.
Richard, as young people become older people, marry and raise families their needs change. I would suggest a trip out to Langley or South Surrey, you would find it very illuminating.
Ken,
Certainly the mayors look like fools for suggesting something they knew wouldn’t work with the Province, or the Province lied. Either way, this thing is a gong show.
The mayor’s proposal would have avoided the need for the referendum they oppose. It really was their only choice.
For the CTF and Fraser Institute to claim that locally generated carbon tax revenue going into provincial “general revenue” is better spent than money going to specific transit projects is mind boggling. The former is a black hole where all manner of pork barrelling is possible while the latter is an organization that’s already been reviewed and audited repeatedly and could be again to ensure the money is being spent properly.
I suspect a little less politically motivated spending would allow the carbon tax shift to happen without any ill-effects to the provincial treasury, but if Christy really did have to raise income taxes on those earning 6-figure salaries that wouldn’t be a bad thing.
I would love to see the mayors defiantly put out a question that asks, “Do you think the Lower Mainland portion of the carbon tax should be used to fund this?”
And if the voters of the Lower Mainland vote yes… what would the province do? (alright, that’s slightly rhetorical, we know they’d just ignore it) But it certainly meets their populist demands that the voters have a say (like they had a say in that vote on the Massey Bridge, oh, nevermind). They’d say no to the will of the electorate, with a straight face?
Do it. Ask the voters what *they* think about reallocated carbon tax revenues.
The big question about “reallocated” carbon tax revenue is – reallocated from what?
Where is that carbon tax revenue currently being spent?
Is it on health care? roads? education? business development? the arts? the environment? municipal funding? ferries?
And who’s going to tell those recipients that their money has been diverted to transit?
My memory is that the Carbon Tax was sold to voters on the principle that it would be revenue neutral – that the additional revenues brought in would be offset by tax reductions in other areas – and I can see the strong political and policy logic of that approach. As it happens, income tax rates on middle-income earners in BC are now among the lowest in the country.
So while I agree that leadership on transit is ridiculously absent I do understand their reluctance to specifically allocate Carbon Tax revenues to Translink, since it would tend to make the Carbon Tax itself more controversial in political and policy terms. If that tax – increasing in size every year and having an ever stronger influence on our energy consumption choices – is to be successful, maintaining at least the concept of ‘revenue neutrality’ is probably a good idea.
The province needs to step up to the bar, but through a general revenue commitment or specific new revenue streams.