Derek Corrigan is right.

Yes, darn it, you read that correctly. The long-serving, left-leaning mayor of the aptly-nicknamed “People’s Republic of Burnaby” is right. On TransLink’s $23 billion tax grab.

TransLink staff were back in front of the regional mayors this morning, whining about their lack of money and pitching a $23-billion, multi-decade plan to expand transit in the Lower Mainland. Bear in mind, the annual budget for TransLink today is $1.4 billion. Talk about dreaming in technicolour.

Corrigan listened to it all – the ridiculous suggestions that TransLink is an efficient operation (they’re not – every single review of the organization has found waste and inefficiency), the idea that we need to move to road pricing (just another type of tax grab, and one that will inevitably cost drivers more money), the calls for social engineering by pricing hard-working families and seniors on fixed incomes out of their cars (those shameless enemies of the state!), the calls for higher fares, more property taxes, a sales tax, and the new $23 billion overall price tag – and Corrigan spoke:

“The idea that the property taxpayer is a bottomless pit of money is over. The reality is that we’re seeing, in every one of our communities, blow back from the public.”

See, I told you Derek Corrigan is right.

You know who else is right? TransLink board chair Nancy Olewiler.

You read that one right, too.

In a piece in the March 2013 Policy Options Magazine, Olewiler wrote the following in reference to western economies entering a time of slow, or no, growth:

A society of slow growth may be the tipping point for transportation. With lower growth, the amount of goods that need to move may not increase at the rates we are accustomed to, meaning there is less need for that incremental investment in roads and rail. Clearly we will need to keep our transportation networks in good repair and to promote more efficient public transit over the use of the single-occupancy vehicle. But slower growth may change the assumptions that go into our projections for new transportation capacity. That possibility is something for planners to think about before they take long-term decisions to pump billions of dollars into infrastructure spending, at the expense of investments in health or education, which we will need to improve our quality of life.

How does TransLink’s chair reconcile this opinion with a $23 billion spending spree? Plus she finally admits what no TransLink spendaholic has ever been willing to say: taking taxes for TransLink means less for other priorities such as health, education, police, water, sewer, etc.

Now, I'm sure her cadre of spin doctors will claim Olewiler meant slowing road and bridge spending, not transit. But it's clear from her piece that she meant both.