The province has already stated it won’t campaign for approval of it. So who will? Groups like the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation are already lining up against the mayors’ plan. And there will be others.
Meantime, billions are being lost to the B.C. economy because of the numbing congestion in the region. If this referendum fails, as it surely will under the current circumstances, it will set the transportation needs of the province back years if not decades. And to my mind it will be entirely the fault of the provincial government.
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Seriously, I’m at a loss. I don’t understand how someone who has such a long view when it comes to the potential benefits of B.C.’s natural gas industry can’t see the benefits of building a transportation network that would accommodate future growth. If we could squish commuters through pipelines would there be a change of heart?
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“The province still doesn’t understand that transit is not a cost, it’s an investment,” said Mr. Toderian. “If they actually treated it like an investment, which it is, we probably wouldn’t be in this problem of transit paralysis in the first place.… To a city-builder and a region-builder it’s a no-brainer.”
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* Odd, though, that Mason is unaware that the carbon tax does not go into “that deep, dark hole in Victoria known as general revenue.”
The tax is ‘revenue neutral,’ in the sense that it’s largely used to cut provincial income taxes, not for other initiatives. So if the Metro portion was transferred to TransLink, it would have to be made up by the Province cutting its budget elsewhere or raising taxes. One can appreciate their pain. So now the question is whether the Province will allow an additional raise in the Metro portion of the carbon tax to be dedicated largely to transit or if it will propose a new or increased tax for the Metro area – or just say no without any constructive option.
If you’re going to argue that the carbon tax doesn’t end up in a black hole please specify the programs to which it is specifically targeted. If that’s not possible then it clearly is going into “general revenue” where it could be put to any use deemed appropriate by cabinet.
The last analysis I saw showed that thanks to tax breaks for “certain” industries the carbon tax is currently revenue negative. That is, it generates less revenue than the income tax it replaced. The people of this province should be outraged that taxes aimed mainly at high income earners were cut and replaced by a tax on the middle class that will likely have to be raised just to achieve neutrality, but it appears the electorate is just as high on natural gas fumes as the people they voted for.