Take pity on our poor political leaders.
Here in the Lower Mainland, they certainly know what’s best when it comes to our day-to-day finances and transportation – yet we persist in putting roadblocks in their way.
When it comes to paying for our commute, they even thought to grant us a transit referendum, er... plebiscite (non-binding as it is):
Do we support adding a 0.5 per cent sales tax to pay for $7.5 billion in transit improvements?
We’re told, doubtlessly, the answer is ‘yes’.
Yet, like fledgling school children, many of us wonder aloud if the answer is ‘no’.
Frustrated in the face of this backtalk, some of our mayors have taken to dire warnings of costly and inconvenient consequences, others to spending our tax money to convince us the error of our ways.
Even so, according to pollsters, the hoi polloi seem increasingly unwilling to listen to the hoity and/or toity on this issue.
What cheek. Our political masters have given us the opportunity to do the right thing, and we have the audacity to want to focus on past wrongs – specifically, their bad management of our good money.
Predictably, like a replay from the Great HST Fiasco of 2011, it’s not just our political appointees who seem aghast. Those who wield power in the major media, too, have gone from informing us to not-so-subtly lecturing us.
Clearly they’re doing it for the greater good. Right?
Of course, to be fair to the ‘nay’ sayers – and those of us who have yet to make up our minds – one might ask why our poor leaders are even mandating the transit poll, if there’s only one non-calamitous answer. And – if the province is really to blame for this situation, as the mayors assert – one might also ask why our civic officials are spending their time and our money educating us, rather than our premier.
Good questions. Ones that could be asked in person at council’s next question period… if only there were such a thing.
Sigh.
Perhaps we should remind our elected officials that they made this mess after campaigning on a platform of representing our wishes. One would think they would take a moment to hear them, even if they appear unwilling to listen.
Poor leaders indeed.