• City bureaucrats developing new driving taxes to collect “tens of millions or more”

VANCOUVER, BC: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is opposing Vancouver City Council’s decision to develop plans for expensive new driving taxes that struggling families and businesses can’t afford.

“This is a slap in the face to the small businesses and the hardworking people of Vancouver from their elected officials at city hall,” said Kris Sims, B.C. Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “People are struggling to cover basics and the last thing they need is over-paid bureaucrats dreaming up expensive new driving taxes.”

Late Tuesday, council voted six to four to have staff at Vancouver City Hall spend two years studying where to put a new toll wall and how high to set the driving taxes.

The initial 371-page report and presentation to council recommended erecting the toll wall to run from Clark Drive to Burrard Street along 16th Avenue and projected revenues of “tens of millions of dollars or more” per year from the driving taxes. Vancouver bureaucrats call the new driving taxes “transport pricing.”

Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart voted in favour of the plan and he also voted against a legal briefing to explain what power the city had to impose driving taxes.

Last week Stewart told the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade: “The City of Vancouver does not even have the legal authority to put something like this in place.”

A previous 2018 report on “mobility pricing” created by Metro Vancouver and TransLink cost taxpayers more than $2 million to produce and recommended tolls of up to $6.37 to drive one-way over the Port Mann Bridge in the morning and $8.27 coming back. The report recommended similar charges for the Queensborough and Pattullo Bridges. That’s about $14 per day, or more than $3,600 for the year for a full time commuter.

“Vancouver bureaucrats and city councillors want other cities to impose these new driving taxes as a ‘regional approach,’ so commuters from Surrey, Mission and Chilliwack should be on guard – bad ideas like these can spread,” said Sims.

To view the Canadian Taxpayers Federation petition opposing these new driving taxes click HERE.

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