Prominent (but, fortunately, out of power) hard-leftie and big government spender Tim Louis has resurfaced, this time demanding TransLink spend a bunch of money educating and pushing the public to give TransLink hundreds of millions of dollars in new taxes in the upcoming referendum.

As 24 Hours reports:

Tim Louis, co-chair of the HandyDART Riders Alliance, said the referendum education job should be TransLink’s.

“TransLink has to make clear what the effect of a passed referendum will be, what the effect of a failed referendum will be,” he said.

“Reallocate part of their PR budget, or advertising to this specific referendum. I’m talking about ads, press conferences, press releases and social media. They got the money there anyways, but instead of marketing cutlery, why not market meat and potatoes.”

So Louis and the TransLink apologists want taxpayer money to be spent to con taxpayers into giving TransLink executives more of our taxpayer money. And he claims to speak for the people?

It’s even more ironic when you consider the fact Louis was a big anti-HST speaker (here’s a link to the Marxist-Leninist Daily to prove it), and one of the tactics Fight HST used effectively was to criticize government advertising in support of the HST.

Here’s a better idea for the referendum campaign: no taxpayer funding for either side. Let the two camps go out and raise money for their cause. And make everything TransLink or any other government puts out during the campaign subject to a fairness review by the Auditor General for Local Government. Taxpayers shouldn’t have their money spent on political causes.