It’s Friday, so time for another famous B.C. Friday Five!
1. B.C. Transit is trying to talk every Kamloops citizen into adding $238 to their annual property taxes in return for one “free” bus pass per household. The idea is modeled on TransLink’s U-pass program, where every university student in the Lower Mainland is charged for a bus pass whether they use it or not. (TransLink has lost millions to U-pass fraud, incidentally.) Don’t do it, Kamloops! Free choice is a cornerstone of our society and people, wherever possible, should be able to choose where they spend their money. Why should someone who never uses transit be forced to pay even more for it? The average Kamloops household already pays $80 per month, a perfectly fair amount to support transit—jacking that up just isn’t fair.
2. Vancouver City Council continues their crusade to blindly pour as much money into cycling as possible—this time it’s a $50,000 grant to Simon Fraser University to conduct a survey on how a new bike-sharing program influences cycling. That’s usually something that would be covered off by a business plan for the bike share program, but bear in mind, this is Vancouver, so a cyclist’s word is good enough for City Hall. They are already pouring $1.9 million into the “free” bike share program, which will directly compete with a number of private bike rental shops across the City.
3. The incomparable Mark Milke makes a strong case here for the B.C. government to get out of the liquor business all together: “I suspect though, that British Columbians… well understand consumers have long been sacrificed in the narrow interests of a government union. That’s why it’s high time the government considered the complete privatization of liquor wholesaling and retailing.”
4. I’ve done dozens of FOI requests over the past year, but this is a new one. Look at this stamp the Transit Police put on an internal email (nothing sensitive in it—or redacted) I recently pulled out of them through a Freedom of Information request:
Ooooh, scary!
By the way, our usual Friday hello to Transit Police Chief Neil Dubord, who loves to “monitor” our blog. Hope all is well, Chief… don’t forget to sign off today on whatever response is being crafted to the fabulous Ian Mulgrew Vancouver Sun op/ed calling for your force to be disbanded.
5. Finally, don’t forget to read our op/ed piece on the ICBC review. But be warned, nausea at how our insurance dollars are being spent may occur.
Is Canada Off Track?
Canada has problems. You see them at gas station. You see them at the grocery store. You see them on your taxes.
Is anyone listening to you to find out where you think Canada’s off track and what you think we could do to make things better?
You can tell us what you think by filling out the survey