A Vancouver Tea Party Movement?
Promising news… we finally had a protest today that wasn’t for saving Iran, Gaza, the whales, or against the Olympics.
It was actually against one of the steep tax increases that are coming our way. I am hoping this is a sign of things to come.. our own little tea party movement.
The silent majority has been pushed to the limit. The government has run out of places to hide taxes and now are starting a cycle of increasing obscure taxes… in this case by three times. The worst part is that they use government bodies they’ve granted taxation rights to, to lessen political damage.
Vancouver’s political machine is completely against cars. They have made it so gas can never go below $1 a litre through the piling on of taxes, including North America’s first carbon tax. The cost of car ownership is huge here in Vancouver, by using government-run ICBC and Transslink to pile taxes on us.
They have made traffic in the city a joke… if you track it, you’ll find you average speed on a commute is around 18 kmh. We have no freeways. Only block after block of unsynchronized traffic lights. In turn, the $1+ gas is wasted sitting at stop lights.
They have tried closing lanes of main arteries into downtown, turning them into bike lanes. Which is fine for those that live nearby, if it didn’t rain 300 days a year.
Vancouver does not want anyone to drive. Period.
Then we have Translink… a government body that manages our transit. They are a taxing authority and have their eyes set on ever-increasing taxes of homeowners, automobile owners, commercial property owners, and now they have decided to triple the tax on parking lot owners.
They are a stellar organization, and reflect the worst of a government body:
- A tripling of the debt since 2005.
- Expenses growing by 3.5 times ridership.
- Administrative costs growing at 101% since 2002.
- No cost reduction targets in place for ‘09 and despite targets in ‘10 costs still growing by 2.7% almost double inflation.
When you pair Translink with ICBC you have the makings of a tax body without any controls in place.
Now downtown business owners are seeing the signs… after the Olymics next month, office building will be empty.
Thanks to the efforts of city hall, Translink and the provincial government, you’d be nuts to move your business downtown. Downtown Vancouver is poised to go into a rapid decline.
So my hat is off to our new Tea Party movement – Drive Out The Tax.
Let’s hope they can get something started and put the brakes on the huge tax increases that are in the pipeline.
January 7th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
Excellent editorial on the Vancouver Car/Driving/Parking/Transit “system”.
I love Vancouver, but what the hell were they thinking when the ended the TCH and dumped it into residential city streets?
Marine Drive would have made an excellent ring freeway out to UBC and back along 4th Avenue/Broadway. The Oak street bridge should have joined into a Granville freeway to downtown and over to the North Shore.
Vancouver is nothing more than a series of chokepoints: Oak Street Bridge/70th Ave., Granville & Broadway, (Granville from 16th Ave. to the bridge deck), Davie, Denman, Robson, Seymore, Georgia streets, ALL bridges, etc., etc., etc.
And for gawd sake, don’t take your car downtown if you are short on gas – there are very few gas stations left there now. I can think of only 3 in the entire downtown core: Burrard & Davie, Denman, and Georgia. You either have to cross a bridge or head east to find gas.
January 7th, 2010 at 7:40 pm
What’s wrong with protests against Iran? I only wish our young people would wake up and get off their duffs and protest across this nation. I am all for protests against tax, nevertheless.
January 7th, 2010 at 7:49 pm
[...] Secrets of Vancouver Posted in british columbia. Tags: Drive out the tax, Metro Vancouver, Parking fares, Tax [...]
January 7th, 2010 at 8:40 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by kalimkassam, Sam Reynolds. Sam Reynolds said: A Vancouver Tea Party Movement? http://bit.ly/7OTGct via @KevinGaudet, @blogging_tories #translink #roft #cdnpoli #tcot (via @kalimkassam) [...]
January 7th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
It may be time for politicians to take a hard look at what they have wrought. There seems to be a growing mood in this country that we are over-regulated, over-taxed, and over-governed. If politicians don’t start doing their jobs they might find that the baby gets thrown out with the bath water and most Canadians will say they don’t give a damn.
January 10th, 2010 at 7:46 pm
Some interesting points here, but I dunno how you can be opposed to taxes and debt, but be pro freeways. How do you think you can achieve the latter without the former? If you were really against public debt, you should be opposed to all the money our government shoves at the overpriced private transit system. The sea-to-sky highway cost more than $600 million that our government doesn’t have, and you get to pay for that even if you never use it. Talk about a colossal waste of resources.
The government should collapse Translink, and form a new transit body where no one makes more than $50,000/year (current Translink salaries are a joke) and have everything run on user-fees. No breaks for the auto sector, no breaks for Translink. How about fairness for a change?
February 5th, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Wow, what a website. I can’t believe there is a conservative in Vancouver.
Steven, it’s possible to build infrastracture without incurring deficits. In fact, if government stopped wasting money on all their precious feel-good social programs, maybe there would be a comprehensive motorway network there and more money in your pocket to boot. There was some planning to build freeways in metro Vancouver four decades ago. That’s why the Georgia St. Viaduct exists. It wasn’t built with the vision of connecting a residential side street to a downtown surface street. The whole Hastings corridor was supposed to be a freeway that connected downtown, eastern Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam, and beyond.
I love how these people always mention changing your “driving habits” as an option. As though driving were a vice. These liberals control all the local governments in metro Vancouver. I encourage you 100% to form your own tea party movement. We killed health care here in the U.S. with ours – even with the Democrats having majorities in Congress.
April 15th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
Naviomelo:
Misinfomed people live to blame government spen ding on “social programs.” Far and away the mofority of our budget goes to the defense Departent, military retirement (from the Treasury department), and interest paid on past wars. As a veteran, and former US civil service employee, I can tell you there is no more waste in government than in defense spending. It is ridiculous that the US spends more on the military than all other nations combined. If this ceased, all budget problems would cease, and scholls, health care, and other needs could be easily satisfied.
See this non-partisan website for information:
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/taxday2010
October 9th, 2010 at 10:07 am
is there a tea party movement in vancouver if yes where do i sign up this country is going straight into a police state !!!!