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Premier Christy Clark to blame for plebiscite failure

Well, it is over to you, Christy Clark. It should come as no surprise that the transit plebiscite failed so overwhelmingly.
transit
Photo Dan Toulgoet

Well, it is over to you, Christy Clark.

It should come as no surprise that the transit plebiscite failed so overwhelmingly. The regional mayors had their arms twisted by the province not to just hold a referendum or a plebiscite, but to base the revenue needed for infrastructure improvements on an increase in sales tax.

The idea sprang from the whimsical mind of our premier during the last election campaign. It was clearly a way for her to distance herself from any kind of tax increase. It proved to be a multimillion dollar failure.

Following the rejection of the last sales tax referendum on keeping the HST, the mayors far preferred getting their revenue from a carbon tax.

But that is a small quibble now.

The province also fiddled with the question the mayors submitted by watering it down, making it less clear. And then the province turned it from a binding “referendum” into a non-binding “plebiscite.”

To its credit, the Yes side formed a remarkably broad coalition with more than 100 groups, including unions, businesses, students, environmentalists, health care professionals and anti-poverty organizations. Who the leader of that gang was however, was never really clear. And that was a problem.

Besides the No side, the anti-tax side was out the gate well ahead of them and defined the issue.

There were a number of reasons to vote no, including the sense that regardless of the outcome, someone would have to do something about transit. In fact, Clark has confirmed that very point.

But the campaign very quickly became, at least in part, a vote on TransLink and not on the carefully crafted transportation plan put together by the mayors. As result, the very future of that dysfunctional institution — which had several serious breakdowns in service during the course of the voting period — is in question.

And that, too, is all on the provincial Liberals. They are the ones who, when Kevin Falcon was transportation minister, stripped the regions’ mayors of much of their power and turned it over to an appointed board, which chose to hold its meetings behind closed doors.

This is not the first provincially inspired referendum/plebiscite that has failed in recent times. I mentioned the government’s failed attempt to keep the HST. But there was former premier Gordon Campbell’s 2002 “experiment in direct democracy” with the referendum on B.C. Treaties. Pollster Angus Reid called it “one of the most amateurish, one-sided attempts to gauge the public will that I have seen in my professional career.”

Then there were the two referenda on electoral reform. The first in 2005 passed by 57 per cent but required 60 per cent. The second, four years later, failed outright.

But on the transit plebiscite, mayors had their doubts from the outset. Surrey mayor Linda Hepner had a “Plan B.” She was promising she would have light rail service in her city regardless of the plebiscite outcome and before her first term was over. Her ace in the hole was her predecessor Dianne Watts. Watts accepted a Conservative nomination for the next federal election on the condition the feds would grant money for Surrey’s light rail system.

It was not a bad deal to make. Earlier this week, the Globe and Mail presented an analysis of Stephen Harper’s Conservative party largess under the headline “Federal infrastructure fund spending favoured Conservative ridings.”

So the failure of this plebiscite will mean a very messy future for the region when it comes to new infrastructure. Vancouver is still intent on its $2 billion plus subway along Broadway and claims it can make the business case for it. But we will once again see a tug of war among the municipalities over who gets what first, much like the fight that elbowed the Evergreen Line out of the way so the Canada Line could get built first.

Instead of a master plan, we will be debating each project in an endless squabble that will last for decades. And that will inevitably mean a slower response and poorer services including delays in much needed new buses to serve the whole region.

While we can blame the mayors for a lack of leadership and a poorly run campaign to bring this one home, ultimately it is Clark who should carry the can.

agarr@vancourier.com

@allengarr