At this point, with little more than seven weeks before voting begins on the TransLink plebiscite to approve a 0.5 per cent regional sales tax, the Yes side is certain of one thing: Unless the channel changes, unless the debate moves off of TransLink and allegations of its incompetence and wasteful ways, unless focus is brought to bear on the crying need for transit improvements throughout the region, the plebiscite will fail.
This week one event made that inevitability abundantly clear. Insights West’s latest poll was released that shows that between polling in early December when the TransLink mayors committee finally crafted the plebiscite question and mid-December when the provincial government revised and re-issued it, support for the Yes side had slipped. Within the margin of error the sides are close to dead even.
Pollster Mario Canseco used the mayors’ question for his first poll and the province’s revision for the most recent one.
And he says there was significant increased public concern and uncertainty about the initiative in part because the question was changed by Victoria.
The wording of the mayors’ proposed question was anything but arbitrary. It was constructed based on what was found in successful referenda questions across the continent.
Their question made it quite clear that the money to be collected would not simply be tossed into TransLink’s piggy bank. It would be accounted for separately protected “by independent audits and public reporting.”
That assurance in the province’s version is pushed up into the preamble but is missing from the actual question.
The mayors were given no explanation as to why the change. Nor was there any explanation as to why the province made a few other key revisions in the question’s pre-amble.
The mayors wanted Vancouver’s Broadway line to be described as” tunneled.” That was changed to “rapid transit.” Surrey’s improvements were proposed as “light rail” that became “rapid transit” too. And the mayors wanted to assure the money would be spent to “improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists.” Those assurances were removed in the provincial version of the ballot.
Finally, there was no explanation as to why what was once proposed as a binding referendum was changed by Victoria into a non-binding plebiscite.
Meanwhile Transportation Minister Todd Stone had to be prodded into saying he would support the Yes side, after his ministry issued a release saying the government would remain neutral.
And while he says he will implement the tax should the plebiscite pass, the government now has the wriggle room to significantly amend the transportation plan put forward by the mayors or to back out entirely and blame the economic uncertainties we all now face.
There is one other point, one that is obviously concerning to businesses and was raised in a debate that took place in Langley earlier this week.
We still do not know what items will be exempt for the tax. That decision is being worked on in the bowels of the provincial treasury offices.
All we know for now is that in a letter sent more than a month ago to the Metro mayors council, Stone said the new tax would apply to “the majority of goods and services that are subject to the PST and are sold or delivered within the region.”
That vagueness has been enough to give business groups a severe case of nerves, concerned customers will avoid the new tax and jump across their boundary and do their shopping in Abbotsford or south in Washington. That’s why they are planning to vote No.
Admittedly some of these points may have little impact on the electorate. The latest poll notes “only 36 per cent of residents have enough information on exactly which projects will take place in their community if the vote is successful.”
So here’s where we are today. The Yes side is still in the process of marshalling its extensive and therefore more cumbersome forces and developing its relatively complex strategy.
The majority of the oxygen in the room is being taken up by a much smaller and far less diverse No campaign which continues to benefit from a simpler message. It ignores the need and benefits of the transportation plan and focuses almost exclusively on TransLink’s failings asking this: “Why throw good money after bad?”
None of which should give the Yes side much comfort.
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