It is clear that the Mayor's glutton council needs to be disbanded. All they do it try to think up new ways to raises taxes for them to spend. A letter to the Vancouver Province says it well: “Mobility pricing is a shiny, friendly term from consultants for the Mayors’ Council because driver’s tax is less palatable." Leave the ten cent a litre billion dollars a year regional gas tax and stop there. No new drivers taxes. Removing bridge tolls and replacing it with a driver tax is fraudulent.
Need a flash mob at the next City Council meeting. 5000 people should do it. Imagine them trying to hold a crowd like that back from getting in.
ReplyDeleteLeave the torches and pitchforks at home folks. This time...
A "driving tax" is simply a way to ensure those who can afford it have unlimited access to the roads, while the rest stay at home or turn over most of their income to the government. A mileage tax is not the way to go. It simply penalizes those on low income. It is not an equitable method.
ReplyDeleteWhat the lower mainland needs is a transportation plan for 50 years min. down the road. They then need to start working on it. How to finance it, simply the old fashioned way, the income tax on personal and corporate taxes. Every one in the province benefits from movement of vehicles even if you never get into one. How do people think goods and services arrive at the stores? All these separate taxes and fees are while keeping income tax down, is simply a method to have people think their taxes aren't as high as they actually are. Bridges, buses, trains, roads should all be paid out of one coffer and that is either property or income tax. Major roads which connect one civic entity to another ought to be provincial responsibility and all the side streets a municipal concern. No tolls are necessary. No hidden taxes and/or fees are necessary. Carbon taxes place an unnecessary burden on working people in this province. If enviornmentalists are concerned about carbon, impose limits and fine violators. Its that simple.
Was winging through Courtenay yesterday and saw the pump price at 1.44 at a Petro Can station. On the way into town it had been 1.38. The only tax on gas ought to be the usual provincial sales tax that is on all other goods.
That is a good point. All these excessive gas taxes does effect the price of everything we buy at the store including food since increased fuel costs increases the price of goods.
DeleteGlutton's council is right, 21 mayor's and councils, 21 separate police, fire and municipal services .... how many health authorities, school districts and their bureaucracies, for a population of 2.5 million. New York has 10 million and one mayor. All these public sector workers are salivating, thinking about their retirement pensions. Every dollar that goes to service those entitlements is a dollar that is diverted from services, not to mention how the unions have undermined the productivity of said employees.
ReplyDeleteThat's a very good point about the size of New York compared to Vancouver. It is a colossal difference. New York is huge in comparison. Clearly we are over managed.
Delete"Over managed" is a polite (and Canadians are known for being polite) way of saying "Bled to the limit by bureaucrats and politicians". You are left just enough to live, preferably getting some of that $$ from them. Makes you dependent don't you know. They are already in charge of much of your life already and want the rest too if they can have it.
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