Stephen Rees's blog

When the BC Government announced that they were launching a new license plate program to support BC parks, I signed up the next time my car insurance needed to be renewed. I actually think that it would be reasonable for the government to increase spending on BC’s provincial parks – but of course that would mean raising taxes. In the same way that we support food banks through donations instead of increasing welfare payments.

They have now announced that this initiative was so successful that they are going to extend it to other worthy causes. This is going to be limited to “charity and not-for-profit organizations”.

Well I have a serious proposal. A lot of us have been saying that we want to see better transit, including better provision for people with limited mobility. We want to see increased spending on things like greenways, and we would also like to see increased levels of bus service. Senior levels of government seem to be happy to spend tax dollars on capital projects – especially when the announcements can be made just before an election. But they seem unwilling to provide adequate funds for operations and maintenance. One option was going to be a regional transit levy funded by a tax sticker on license plates. That was cancelled by Ujjal Dosanjh. Why not a regional transit license plate? It is run by a not for profit, after all. And no-one can argue that there isn’t a need that government has been ignoring. And it could be collected for other regional transit systems that are also in need of support like Victoria, or Abbotsford. It will also be a way for those of us who think we need to have a way to say that we would rather be using a more convenient transit service than driving ourselves. Or just a reminder to government that not everyone agrees that the answer to every issue in politics is to propose a tax cut – especially those aimed at those already much better off than the average.

Of course the sad thing is my new I Support Transit license plate will replace my I Support Provincial Parks plate. But you can’t have everything.