As the transit referendum approaches, the yes side will go out of its way to convince the people of the concerned area to vote yes. A lot of money will be spent on advertisements by the provincial government, municipalities and other organizations to pull through the yes campaign.
According to reports the BC government is poised to spend up to four million dollars and the City of Surrey between two and three hundred thousands dollars – the list goes on and on.
Directly or indirectly that sum will be paid by the tax payers at the end of the day.
Is it not waste of money? Yes it is. Plenty of waste and mismanagement of money is taking place all over at the different levels of governments. Before proposing a half percentage point tax hike, the politicians should have given a serious thought to plug the massive holes of waste and mismanagement.
We are already taxed to death with federal tax, provincial tax, property tax, provincial sales tax, goods and services tax, transit levy, and every time we fill up at the pump a major portion on every litre we pay is tax. Adding a half percent over and above the taxes we are already paying is outright wrong.
As suggested, $250 million generated annually will be given to an organization called TransLink which already has a real terrible record of managing money.
It has wasted and mismanaged millions and millions of dollars in the past. Rather, all the municipalities and TransLink should be determined to make $250 millions from the waste and mismanagement already taking place everywhere all year round.
For example, just recently TransLink demoted CEO Ian Jarvis and brought in Doug Allen as an interim CEO; a huge waste and mismanagement is taking place right under our noses when both of them will be on the payroll simultaneously while doing the same job.
Unfortunately, provincial politicians and the regional mayors who make such decisions to raise taxes are so disoriented, self-centred and aimless that they have a hard time to focus on the need to stop the waste and mismanagement. All they are focusing on is the further tax hikes and their own pay increments.
Kalwant Singh Sahota
Delta