Maybe cancel the “climate emergency” and declare an all-out, out-of-control, overspending and inept council emergency instead.
According to the acquiescent Vancouver Sun (which is half the problem — you won’t even find the story — about the highest tax increase in a decade, after substantial yearly increases, in a city besieged by high property taxes and other costs — until page five):
“Along with an 8.2 per cent property tax increase, the 2020 draft budget also includes a combined 9.4 per cent increase in service fees for water, sewer and solid waste collection.”
The far-leftist councillor Adriane Carr chose to speak about it… on CBC radio — CBC being the state-owned, annual taxpayer-paid billion-and-a-half-dollar money-loser. The idea of talking to a far-leftist councillor about out-of-control spending by a left-wing city government resulting in a huge tax increase for its citizens — on the CBC — creates a rich irony, which apparently flies right over Carr’s head, and that of the interviewer, Stephen Quinn (who otherwise did an admirable job of being an actual journalist and being skeptical, and asking skeptical questions, and not bending over like the Vancouver Sun’s stenographers).
Quinn sets up the story informing listeners that naturally, “property tax, like just about every other cost in Vancouver, goes up every year.” As if it’s a given. Of course not all costs go up. Lots of costs come down. Taxes could too, given the proper management. But Vancouver has for years been led by ideological leftists, and under those circumstances, Quinn is at least right about the taxes. Taxes can’t go down under left-wing governments. They will go up every year.
He spells it out: “For the past four years that rate [of tax increases] has been well above the rate of inflation…”
But that doesn’t matter to councillor Carr, who thinks it’s all so very “reasonable.”
“I think it’s a big stretch,” she says (notwithstanding it being ever-so “reasonable”), but, she declares, “it’s a stretch based solidly on a need.” Well then. What are some of these “needs?” The left-wing Vancouver city council’s “priorities” identified in their PR material include these gems, which all sound like they were taken directly from AOC’s Progressive Woke Virtue-Signalling Far-Leftist Handbook:
- Accelerate action on climate change – $6.8 MILLION.
- Increase focus on diversity and critical social issues – $2.5 MILLION.
- Address affordability and the housing crisis – $4.1 MILLION.
- Protect and build our economy – $7.9 MILLION.
I scoured the document, and found a dearth of information about all the spending cuts which I thought would surely occupy half of the doc. To be precise, there are none. Not one spending cut is spelled-out.
But in any case, there is no “spending,” per se. See, Carr completely eliminates the word “spending” as she speaks on the CBC, replacing that word, each and every time, with “investing,” as per the Handbook. See it’s not a “spending” problem! It’s a solid needs-based investment in reasonableness!
Just two years ago I was reading this story about Carr’s motion to invest in themselves a 12.5% pay increase:
Vancouver City Councillors and Vancouver Park Board Commissioners quietly gave themselves pay raises during meetings held over the last few weeks.
Green City Councillor Adrienne Carr’s motion was carried at a standing committee of the whole on February 24 and was not announced in a media release.
It includes an $8,900 per year increase in pay for Councillors, bringing their salaries to $80,000 annually. …
I think it might be reasonable to reduce a councillor’s salary — now $86,266 plus expenses and benefits and discretionary spending — by an amount commensurate with each year’s property tax increase. Sound reasonable Ms. Carr? Think of it as an investment.
Nota bene
A story today about Surrey BC’s taxes (Surrey being a suburb bigger than Vancouver):
“… As such, a 2.9% residential property tax hike — slightly above this year’s regional inflation rate and the lowest level of infrastructure investments in at least 10 years — is what’s in store for Surrey residents in 2020 … “
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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