Ancap Good News: Vancouver business chiefs launch attack on parking tax

A slickly organized protest against the tripling of the provincial sales tax on parking is hitting the streets this morning.

Signs. Brochures. Anti-tax advocates manning the entrance to pay parkades throughout Metro Vancouver. A sophisticated website and social media campaign. Pre-programmed cellphones for parkade customers to inundate politicians' and bureaucrats' inboxes with their personalized protests.

Ancap Good News: Vancouver business chiefs launch attack on parking tax 2416240

All of this is focused to showcase some hard-hitting facts and analysis that build the case that this tax is too narrowly focused and unfair. The coalition also trains a harsh spotlight on TransLink's performance. One poster decries how TransLink's administrative costs have risen 101 per cent since 2002, how its debt has tripled, and how its board members are paid $1,200 a day. A background paper shows how, despite TransLink's best efforts to get people onto transit, the number of cars in the region has been growing twice as fast as the number of people for the past 15 years.

But this campaign is also aimed at the provincial government, which has given TransLink the authority to impose the tax. And it will be hard for Victoria to ignore for at least three reasons:

- The organizers represent Metro Vancouver's business elite -- usually a B.C. Liberalfriendly crowd.

The 30 groups who've formed the coalition -- and membership is still growing -- range from the Building Owners and Managers Association, which represents owners of most of the big downtown buildings that will be hardest hit, to the Board of Trade.

- There is mass appeal to what they're saying. E-mail response to earlier Vancouver Sun reports and columns on this subject -- not to mention what parking garage staff report they're hearing -- indicates this issue has the potential to fire up a lot of voters.

- The solid base of research on which the case against the tax is based. The coalition behind the protest has marshalled the data to support its contention that this tax is unfair.

Three years ago, public outrage shot TransLink down on a parking-related tax proposal -- the other infamous parking tax that would have hit every flat space owned by any business in the region. At that time, the Greater Vancouver Transit Authority Act was amended to allow a gas tax increase that was to be "balanced fairly between road users, transit riders and property taxpayers."

More: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Vancouver+business+chiefs+launch+attack+parking/2413855/story.html

Ancap Good News: Vancouver business chiefs launch attack on parking tax

Ancap Good News: Vancouver business chiefs launch attack on parking tax

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