CKNW Editorial
for November 8, 2000

The time has come, I think, to stand back from the Transit levy issue and see what’s gone wrong – and plenty has.

To start with, it has been very badly sold. In the beginning it was stated, and very strongly too, that the levy was an environmental thing. Get cars off the road, it was said, and the air pollution will be much reduced. This point was picked up on by Dr David Suzuki who, with out much thought evidently, endorsed the notion on that basis. In addition, we were told, the levy will get people out of their cars into public transit. But these statements were utter codswallop as the most cursory examination demonstrated. If you put a levy on a car, no matter where it is driven or how much, you in fact encourage people to use cars on the basis that they’ve paid their "fine" and might just as well get something for the money they’ve spent. The bottom line is that by having a levy, not attached to the amount of driving done, increases traffic and the impact on the environment.

The matter has been dealt with arrogantly by both Mr Puil and Ken Dobell. This isn’t something that I made up … it’s a feeling across much of the population. Mr Puil is two steps removed from the people and it shows. He is the appointment of the City of Vancouver to the GVRD and appointed once again to the head of Translink. He has, then, no mandate from the overall GVRD citizenry. This illegitimacy hurts Mr Puil’s case for much the same reason that Canadians don’t have respect for the Senate.

But the arrogance has been most egregious when Mr Puil and Mr Dobell talk about assessing and collecting this levy.

It doesn’t matter that we’re not talking huge sums of money here … the method of taxation is just not fair. The example of the Mom with the van transporting kids is a good one. Why should she pay $120 when the stockbroker or lawyer, with his Porsche pays $40. If a tax is not seen as fair it will be resisted. This tax is not fair.

The crucial fact here is that everyone agrees that a gas tax, if there must be a levy, is the fairest way. But Mr Puil says that he doesn’t have authority to raise the gas tax, and he is, of course, right. The trouble is he doesn’t have any authority to raise it two other convenient ways – through ICBC or Aircare. And here’s where the arrogance has really rubbed people the wrong way.

At the beginning, the Puil/Dobell team acted as if they did have the power to add their levy onto the ICBC premiums. That’s what they told all who would listen. It turns out that they have no such power.

Then Mr Dobell announced that it would be tacked onto Aircare so that if you didn’t pay it the Aircare people would refuse you the certificate needed for your car insurance. Turns out this was a load of crap too. They’re left with billing motorists then chasing through a collection agent those who won’t pay. No Bill Collector is going to take on such piddling amounts.

Then, as if to punctuate their arrogance. Mr Puil and Mr Dobell went into their Chicken Little routine and told all who would listen that busses would be canceled and roads would deteriorate nigh unto the unusable. People don’t react very well to being fibbed to and then threatened.

Now let’s be clear. We must solve our traffic problems and we must have the money to do it. And the entire matter ought to have been tackled differently from the outset.

But supposing at this late date Translink put forward a plan for the GVRD which all could see and asked, by referendum, if people would support a gas tax for such a scheme. This would require the GVRD to make some serious commitments in areas they’d as soon avoid … such as the corridor to Richmond, light rail to the airport and a third crossing of Burrard Inlet … but having made the decisions the people would then be given their vote. It need not be a complicated question. It isn’t necessary to attach the plan to the ballot. You could do the same as was done in Charlottetown in 1992 – do you approve of the GVRD’s transit plan and are you prepared to pay an increase in gasoline in order that it might be funded. Plans and the written recommendations could be made available on request just as the Charlottetown Accord was.

I believe that, properly presented, such a referendum would pass. If it passed, both the provincial NDP and Liberals would be off the hook and could pass enabling legislation.

Time is, of course, short. But it seems to this observer that Messrs Puil and Dobell have no alternative but to go back to the drawing board as the present diktat from on high is just not going to wash with the citizenry.

On the question of referenda, I have trouble understanding what the fuss is all about re Stockwell Day. He is not calling to change any laws but to seek democratic guidance. Every poll I’ve seen in many a moon has people favouring the present abortion law. If the argument is that abortion is a woman’s right and can’t be tampered with by legislation then the clear solution is to get a Supreme Court of Canada ruling.

It strikes me as amazing, but so Canadian, that the democratic right to express an opinion and influence political events can raise such hackles.