Dear Editor,
Throughout the Plebiscite on the Mayor’s (public transit) Plan we have been told constantly that the expectation is that the Federal Government and the Provincial Government will each provide one third of the $7.5 billion (now $7.7 billion and rising) plans cost.
What is never said by the mayors is that this level of funding represents $5 billion. The reason for this omission is that the Mayors’ Plan itself acknowledges that they expect significantly less than this amount from the two levels of senior government.
The plan states that “Total Federal, Provincial and partner government contributions would be $3.95 billion.” This represents less than 53 per cent of the plan’s expected cost.
The plan does not indicate exactly who the “partner government” is or what their expected contributions will be. I assume it is the local municipal governments. So we can all expect increased property taxes to pay for the Plan in addition to other planned tax increases.
Further, of the $3.95 billion, $400 million is from the Federal Gas Tax Transfer.
This is not new funding, but instead it is current funding that will be re-directed to finance the plan — what this money was funding will now most likely be underfunded, to be funded by yet another local tax increase?
This results in new funding of only $3.55 billion.
Who knows exactly how much of this funding will be from the Federal and Provincial Governments. Suppose it is only $3 billion, this represents only 40 per cent of the plan’s expected cost (and only 60 per cent of the funding expectations implied by the mayors).
Even this level of funding may not be realized. The mayors also intend to introduce Mobility Pricing (though given how the Compass Card program has gone, it is hard to believe that a technically more demanding mobility pricing program can be implemented successfully), as well as stating that they are prepared for the Province “to increase the existing B.C. Carbon Tax rate for the Metro Vancouver region.”
Given all the new funding sources the mayors expect to introduce, it is difficult to believe the Federal and Provincial Governments, who have their own priorities, will not see these proposals as a means of further limiting their contributions to the Plan.
For a transportation plan that is intended to benefit not only Metro Vancouver, but both the Federal and Provincial Governments, it appears that the residents of Metro Vancouver will be financing the bulk of the plan and significantly more than the Mayors are implying.
Al Williams
Richmond
