Review lets Liberals dodge transit decisions
By Craig McInnes, Vancouver Sun
August 5, 2009
The provincial government is calling on one of the oldest dodges in the book to cope with the bad news coming out of TransLink and BC Ferries.
Rather than face up to the tough choices that are going to be made to keep the entities set up by their own government operating in the black, Transportation Minister Shirley Bond and Finance Minister Colin Hansen have asked the comptroller-general to conduct a wide-ranging review of both organizations based on the notion that if only they were better managed, they could build new transit lines, float more boats and keep the buses running without any increases in fares, taxes or tolls.
Premier Gordon Campbell reinforced the message last week, saying that TransLink needs to get its own house in order before looking for any new revenue from taxpayers.
"I think that before people start talking about tax increases, they should start talking about savings in their own organization," Campbell said, without pointing to anything specific that should be done.
TransLink says it is $450 million short of what it needs to continue operating through 2011 based on its current obligations and the provincially backed plan to build the long-promised Evergreen rapid transit line.
It has proposed two new controversial revenue measures that have previously been rejected by the province and which would require the approval of the legislature, an annual $122 levy on vehicles and putting tolls on existing bridges.
It has been only two years since then transportation minister Kevin Falcon blew up the old TransLink and put in a professional board of directors.
The premise then was the same as it is now: If we had competent managers, we would be able to deliver all the goodies we have been promising and you, the long-suffering taxpayer, wouldn't have to pay any more.
Then the new board came up with the same, unpalatable solutions offered by the old bunch, laying out a choice between finding more revenue by raising taxes, tolls and fares or cutting back on existing services and expansion plans.
The management at BC Ferries has a different set of problems but similar, politically unpalatable choices. The recession has led to a sharp drop in traffic, exacerbating existing losses on smaller routes. According to the ferry commission annual report released Friday, ferries on the 18 minor routes were only one-third full from January to March.
BC Ferries is required to maintain service levels on those routes regardless of demand, under its contract with the provincial government.
To stay on course, BC Ferries will have to continue to raise fares, which puts heat on the government, as would the other alternative, cutting services.
But what was Bond focusing on last week? The salary paid to senior executives, which she found "shocking."
If she is really shocked, she hasn't been paying attention. She was in cabinet when BC Ferries was reconstituted as a quasi-private company. It's no surprise that executive compensation would therefore be based on private-sector comparators (92 companies were looked at by Hewitt Associates, according to the public filing last week) rather than executives in the public sector.
Although the theme of pretending that better management, efficiency and eliminating waste is a viable alternative to taking tough decisions is routine for opposition politicians, Campbell's government has at least introduced a new wrinkle.
This is the first time I recall when a government has turned on its own offspring to deflect attention away from hard realities. Sooner or later, however, the tough choices will still have to be made. The win-win of something for nothing exists only in the never-never land of political pipe dreams.
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)... just be more transparent.
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