Stephen Rees's blog

Matthew Burrows in the Georgia Straight

Translink gets a flat 12c a litre of the provincial fuel tax – no matter what the gas sells for. The feds of course get the GST which is based on price and taxes (tax on tax – only in Canada!). When the price goes up, people buy less of it. And oil pirces are not going to go down very much for very long in future. Of course the genius in Victoria who wants tot ake back controil into his own hands thinks that future revenue increases should come from property tax, which is stupid and regressive but means the tax payers will blame their local council and not the provincial Liberals. Which is the sort of short term, small minded self interested thinking that dominates when people like Kevin Falcon get elected.

The old Translink Board refuses to recognize its lame duck status, and after a bit of toing and froing finally comes out for some demand side management. Actually Richmond’s Mayor Brodie had to wake up and switch sides to break the deadlock.
Which was the right thing to do but is very unlikely to make any difference. Given the size of the Liberal majority in the leg, they will continue to barrel on, relying on spin to get past the awkward questions. Like how does this help us reduce our greenhouse gases when transportation is one of its biggest components? There will be targets apparently for things like oil or forestry- the big industries. Not the things that voters do. And no talk about actually effective policies, like a carbon tax or congestion charges.