Jeff Nagel, writer for the Leader papers and BC LocalNews, has done an invaluable service by putting in one place the backstory on the referendum. You can link here for the story with illustrations, interviews and timelines – but I’ve copied the text below given that this is a necessary read as, in the next few weeks, we will get the wording for the referendum question, including the proposed package and funding source. (I’m hearing December 11.)
It could well be, depending on the particulars, that the referendum will live or die in the first 24 hours after the announcement. If there is wide support, the positive voices are heard, the media conveys the messaging (rather than relying on ‘streeters’ – hey, do you, person in the street, like the idea of more taxes!?’), then the referendum will have some momentum into the new year.
The Province’s reaction (particularly the Premier’s) will also be key – but I assume they will have signed off on the wording and the option. If they reverse position based on public blowback, then … well, Jeff will have another chapter to include in the precis below:
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Analysis: Referendum is challenge like no other in TransLink’s tortured history
By JEFF NAGEL
November 20, 2014
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Premier Christy Clark’s promise of a regional transportation referendum hit Metro Vancouver like a drone strike — quiet, unexpected and devastating — in the middle of the 2013 provincial election.
Municipal politicians exploded, blasting the premier for creating a new roadblock to the transit expansion they see as critical for the region’s well-being.
But now there’s no getting out of the promise that any new tax to improve transit be approved by the region’s voters, even though defeat could block TransLink’s plans for years.
Metro Vancouver will find out next year if Clark’s campaign vow was brilliant populist politics but reckless public policy, as many observers fear.
Mayors’ plan
After the BC Liberals’ decisive re-election last year, Metro cities were given a tight deadline in the spring of 2014 to craft their vision of what the region needs and how to pay for it.
Mayors came back with their $7.5-billion plan, which includes light rail lines in Surrey, a Broadway subway line, a dozen new express bus B-Lines, a 25 per cent overall bus service lift and more frequent SeaBuses.
But Transportation Minister Todd Stone refused to share the existing provincial carbon tax and warned the plan may spend too much, too fast for the tastes of the province, and possibly Ottawa, both of which are to contribute large chunks.
Mayors have pressed the minister ever since for an answer on what other new funding source might fly —a new regional carbon tax, a vehicle levy or a regional sales tax.
A deal and a referendum win could finally deliver sustainable funding for TransLink that has long been elusive.
Off track from the start
It seems as if Metro mayors have always battled the province over how to pay for more transit.
For nearly all of its 15-year history, TransLink struggled to find extra money to build new transit lines and boost service as the population grew and new neighbourhoods sprang up.
The transportation authority was formed in 1999 to empower local politicians to raise taxes and be accountable for those decisions, replacing the unelected BC Transit board within Metro.
A $75 vehicle levy approved by the province was to be charged annually to put the new agency on sustainable footing with an extra $500 million over five years.
But that plan quickly went off the rails.
Motorists fought the “car tax,” the opposition BC Liberals promised in 2000 to kill it and the governing New Democrats reneged and refused to order ICBC to collect the levy in early 2001, just before the Liberals swept to power.
Ever since, TransLink has been in a financial hole.
New projects were built — notably the Canada Line in 2010 — and bus service did expand but nothing happened fast enough to deliver a real transit alternative that could get many more drivers out of cars, reduce congestion and ensure Lower Mainland livability.
Without the vehicle levy, other charges climbed: fares, property taxes, pay parking taxes and the gas tax, which cities and the province agreed to raise three times, from 10 to 17 cents a litre.
Projects pushed
All the while, mayors complained the province pushed its own priorities ahead of the region’s — construction of the Canada Line ahead of the Evergreen Line to dovetail with the 2010 Olympics; requiring SkyTrain technology instead of cheaper light rail for both those projects; and mandating the costly fare gates/Compass card project to fight fare evasion.
That discord peaked in the near-rejection of the Canada Line in 2004 by the mayors and councillors who then served on the TransLink board — it took three votes and provincial arm-twisting before the project was finally approved.
Then-Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon branded the board of local politicians dysfunctional and in 2007 swept them aside and installed an appointed professional board as part of a major remake of TransLink. The mayors’ council was created but relegated to approving or rejecting tax hikes pitched by the appointed board.
In the years that followed, the mayors dug in their heels and for the most part resisted raising taxes unless they got sustainable funding for TransLink and regained greater control over its priorities.
And finally, in September 2010, it seemed a breakthrough was at hand.
Then-premier Gordon Campbell signed a memorandum of understanding with the mayors committing the province to negotiate new revenue sources for TransLink, possibly even road pricing.
Six weeks later, however, Campbell, damaged from the fight over the HST, announced he would resign.
Enter Premier Christy Clark.
Bait and switch
The next TransLink crisis was whether the Evergreen Line would actually be built and finally give Tri-City residents the rapid transit they had been promised for more than two decades. TransLink needed $40 million a year it didn’t have to cover its share of the costs.
Under pressure, the mayors 
voted in 2011 to approve the third bump in the gas tax to ensure the line proceeded and trusted the province would deliver a new revenue stream worth $30 million a year for promised bus improvements.
But no new source was forthcoming.
Clark instead piled onto public anger over fare evasion and executive bonuses and ordered a provincial audit of TransLink to find internal savings.
TransLink managers carved savings out of the system, axed vice-presidents, “optimized” bus routes and shelved expansion plans.
Stop-and-start talks with the province over new revenue sources resumed, with the mayors once again suggesting a vehicle levy as their top choice and then Transportation Minister Mary Polak cautioning the end result must be affordable to residents and that money come from within the region, not elsewhere in B.C.
Then came the drone strike — Clark’s 2013 election campaign promise that any new funding source has to survive a referendum.
Transit advocates denounced the proposed referendum the instant it was announced, warning the system may be paralyzed for years if the vote fails.
In the midst of the election campaign, even Polak said she was concerned about that and suggested the referendum not be about whether new taxes would be imposed, but which ones they will be.
Clark threw her under the bus the next day, insisting voters will be able to reject all new taxes — period — not be forced to pick their poison.
Whose tax is it anyway?
The government’s real agenda, many Metro mayors suspect, is to box them into what would be the unpopular move of raising property taxes — which also cuts into cities’ spending room — instead of a vehicle levy or extra sales tax, which are more likely to bring voters’ wrath on the province.
The province says property taxes still have room to rise rise because Metro Vancouver residents were absolved of paying hospital capital taxes that are charged in every other region. Those taxes were removed In Metro to make room for higher transit taxes when TransLink was created. (TransLink property taxes, about $250 per average home, are lower than residents in the Okanagan pay in taxes for hospitals and BC Transit but the overall contribution to TransLink from most car-driving Metro households is hundreds of dollars a year higher because of the 17-cent-a-litre gas tax.)
The province also argues cities let municipal wages and spending rise too fast and should have been in better position to finance TransLink had they been more disciplined.
Mayors counter property taxes will go up — under Falcon’s reform, TransLink gets three per cent more each year whether they agree or not — but they refuse to voluntarily approve more, arguing homeowners are maxed out.
Metro residents will know in a few weeks if the two sides can even agree on a tax proposal to put to voters.
If the referendum is defeated or if no agreement is reached to hold one, the mayors will be back to their same old choice: raise property taxes significantly or let transit service stagnate in the face of continued growth.
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More background and timelines here.
This sentence is wrong, and highlights TransLink’s biggest failure: its inability to showcase its success:
“New projects were built — notably the Canada Line in 2010 — and bus service did expand but nothing happened fast enough to deliver a real transit alternative that could get many more drivers out of cars, reduce congestion and ensure Lower Mainland livability.”
Facts are:
Metro Vancouver’s transit mode shift– out of cars and into transit, walking and cycling– is unmatched in North America, largely due to the expansion of rapid transit.
We are runaway leaders in per person transit use among other cities our size in North America. We have more than three times as many transit trips per person as the next highest city of our size (Portland).
Only New York and Toronto have higher per capita transit use than Metro Vancouver.
The success of the Canada Line is proof that when transit is frequent and convenient, people will use it. The line was projected to have 100,000 daily riders by 2013. By 2011, the average daily ridership had reached 120,000.
Well CC is a clever fox. She states the facts that municipal wages have risen too fast and that Vancouver’s property taxes are too low, two critical elements conveniently not mentioned in the mayors’ proposal.
Personally I expect a narrow vote for the referendum question along the vote split in Vancouver, ie Vision, renters and lower wage folks will vote FOR and NPA, car lovers and many property owners will vote against it.
We shall see. The excessive wage & benefit question will disappear, like in the municipal elections.
Perhaps before I hit the grave I can use a subway to UBC! We shall see.
As stated here and elsewhere car use is still far too cheap on Vancouver but better alternatives have to be built !
If the split occurs as you expect, those voting against will collectively possess higher education attainment, career achivement, net-worth, and higher levels of literacy, IQ, and health.
Let me just rearrange a few words of your first paragraph under Whose Tax Is It Anyway:
The mayors’ real agenda, the Provincial Government suspects, is to box them into what would be the unpopular move of raising taxes — which also cuts into the province’s spending room — instead of an increase in the property tax, which are more likely to bring voters’ wrath on the mayors.
The mayors are just a guilty and politically cowardly. They have the means tor raise money for Translink but are afraid to do it.
Indeed, by keeping wages & salaries in check, and raising property taxes much cash-flow could be created to finance billions in new debt. Missing though is the right to toll cars at certain intersections, or raise sales taxes.
The debate about COST CONTROL and sustainable wages & benefits, i.e. the cost of delivering a set of services, must enter the equation, too, but has not thus far !
The mayors are indeed passing the buck to the Feds and the province unnecessarily !
Regarding the tolling of intersections we do well to remember the Fairy Tale told to children of the evil troll under the bridge and the Three Billy Goats Gruff who were threatened to be eaten by the evil troll when they tried to pass over the bridge. In the story the evil troll always wanting more and more is tricked into facing the largest Billy Goat of all who then head butts him into the abyss and everyone lives happily after.
On a more serious note we should realize that the tolling of space and time is a crime against our freedom that if left unanswered will lead to the carting off of the poorest among us.
Freedom? It’s merely a desire to make the roads pay for more of their considerable costs, reduce congestion, and free up public funds for more efficient endeavors. Driving is not a cheap activity. Gas, insurance, and maintenance are as much an attack on ‘freedom’ as a toll bridge or a congestion zone, or for that matter a transit fare.
Why not have business class lanes, for a far higher fee .. like in airplanes or trains ?
Why is a “public road” only one class ? Would you pay $20 extra to save 20 minutes on Lionsgate Bridge, Granville, Hwy 1 or Broadway ? Most would not, but some would.
Public pools charge a fee, as do community centers for a class, why not a road or bridge for extra (fast) service ?
Nagel’s highly informative article on Christy Clark’s upcoming transportation referendum clearly illustrates the right wing agenda of the Christy Clark and how her government is a complete puppet to the Fraser Institute and other right wing climate denying forces. The referendum is a serious threat to any kind of stability In planning for the growth of a quality public transportation system that will get people out of their cars and help reduce GHGs. It is also geared to forcing municipal governments to reign in their spending so that municipal employees are no longer afforded decent salaries and the many important services that municipalities provide are reduced. It will be just another example
of how a puppet premier will carry on the “cut taxes” agenda which people will be strapped paying for as inequality and poverty in BC continues to grow.
The issue is that civil servants get TOO HIGH a salary and benefit package compared to similar private sector jobs, with far Lowe risk of layoffs. Many a private sector job disappeared or got a wage cut, say GM or AirCanada or many construction firms in the 2008/2009 recession whereas civil servants still got raises.
Fraser Institute is a think tank. The Liberals are a party, which in BC is right of centre, but not as far as say the conservatives or Wild Rose in AB or the conservatives in SK.
Taxes are plenty high in BC, 45% for wages over $120,000 plus 12% GST plus PST on stuff purchased with the remaining 55%, essentially 50%+. Legal theft if you ask me.
I’d prefer lower income taxes but higher property taxes ( as far too many non-Canadians pay far too little in taxes in Canada) and also higher consumption taxes or car use taxes.
I would not call CC a puppet. She is pretty strong willed, and in tune with the electorate. Of course many do not agree with her view. That’s life.
The whole angst about salaries doesn’t address the issue at all. Ok, so we cut salaries, then what? It’s not like the government is just going to throw all that money at transit.
We need a plan with funding mechanisms. Whinging about salaries is useless.
Taxpayers expect value for their money, not public sector unions extolling artificially high wages and benefits from a monopoly employer with no right to outsource or to hire replacement workers. As such they are leery approving more taxes for anything, incl transit run by inefficient overpaying entities like TransLink ( or BC Hudro, ICBC, CBC, CanadaPost, BCFerries… )
I am not saying we do not need more fast public transit, but we need it run efficiently and THAT is what many of the influential MetroVan mayor’s do not understand or do not want to hear as they run on left-leaning union support, specifically N-Van, Burnaby and Vancouver. The tax paying public is fed up with overpaying. That issue is deeply connected with the referendum !
The mayor’s did not offer wage reductions, or slower than inflationary increases, nor property tax increases as two ways to fund investments.
Example: if you save $20M a year in salaries&bendfits you ban borrow $1B at 2%. So, clearly wages&benefits and the ability to borrow and service loans, for example for transit, are deeply connected !
You are either a CUPE member or worse. No one with any sense could imagine that ” municipal employees are no longer afforded decent salaries.” There would have to be not just a freeze, but claw-back reductions, and even then, they would need to be significant, to reduce them to a level ‘below decent.’ The repeated and excessive over-enrichment in wages, benefits, vacations, RRSPs and pensions over the last 15 years has been chronic enough that it has created a new class of tenured, wealthy citizens. Unchecked, this can quickly bring systemic destruction; simply review how previous prosperous US local gov’t went bankrupt. Look at how it has relegated nations like Italy to 2nd or 3rd rate economies.
Latest story I saw had corporate cash reserves at 630 billion dollars…