Election thoughts, LRT thoughts

I haven't posted here in a long while, because as the election got rolling, most of my energy went towards TriTAG, who I have been working with since 2012. Once again, we have a big LRT fight.

In the last few months, we've seen the rise of a well-funded anti-LRT crusade led by Jay Aissa. And as a result, it's the same old battles, the same old wounds reopened, and a lot more vitriol and no small amount of misinformation and unfounded arguments.

TriTAG's efforts this election were meant to be focused on the 2014 Election Candidate Survey, which has been very successful so far. That was back in the optimistic early days when we thought the election might be about tackling new issues. As time went on, it became clear that we needed to "mythbust the election" to deal directly with some of the myths being peddled by the crusaders.

On the eve of the election, I thought I would say a few words about why I got engaged with the LRT issue years ago, and why it continues to be the most important battle to win.

In 2011, we faced a choice between two very different solutions for "higher order transit". One was bus-based, and the other was rail-based. Despite the fact that LRT is more expensive, it appears to achieve its goals better: namely, shifting more people to public transit and also shifting development to focus on intensifying the core. It also provides better long term value by providing the capacity we'll need in a couple of decades.

I agreed that LRT was the better option, and that formed a large basis for my support. I also knew that to be successful, LRT alone isn't enough, but we need an entirely redesigned transit network supporting it. The fact that ION is not meant to stand alone and knowing what the central corridor would need to properly support a better bus network also made me favour it. But I also knew something else: that Light Rail would become a symbol for Waterloo Region. A symbol whose importance should not be dismissed.

We have a big problem in North America. We just don't really believe in transit. The car is king, and we can't really even conceive of how that will ever change. But time moves quickly, and as we've spent the last 60 years sprawling our cities ever outward, we need to spend the next 60 reshaping them to be viable, livable places.

Much more so than a rapid busway, light rail is a visible sign that we can alter a city's trajectory. It will be on almost every stock photo for the region, for UW, for Uptown and Downtown. It will quickly become an indelible part of our identity, and we will not tolerate anything less than success for it. Which means that LRT will open up the region to ongoing transit improvements. It will shift the attitudes of the entire population. That shift in mindset will also translate into ridership.

Whereas-- and here's the kicker-- it's unlikely that Bus Rapid Transit would be allowed to succeed.

Had we chosen BRT in 2011, I would be supporting it today. But it would face an uphill battle. The problem with BRT is its flexibility: a busway is a busway, sure... but too often, BRT systems are often watered down during the design phase. I have no doubt we'd face pressure here to cut the dedicated busway where it would be needed most. It's possible that the very definition of BRT, as a rapid bus operating on its own right of way, might even be rewritten by politicians unwilling to displace cars at all.

LRT, on the other hand, is much harder to erode. It stands a better chance of surviving to deliver on its promise.

I doubt that many of the anti-LRT crusaders are anything but just anti-transit. They'll tolerate what's there now, but if they can kill LRT while talking up BRT as "a much better option", I have no confidence they'll deliver anything like "gold standard" Bus Rapid Transit.

Helping Waterloo Region make a shift towards better mass transit is why I've been fighting so hard. We're really the first city in Ontario rolling out what transit expert Vukan Vuchic (see his Waterloo speech here) calls "medium capacity transit". LRT can bridge the gap (in terms of capacity, speed, and cost) between buses and subways, and there are half a dozen cities in Ontario that could benefit from it. But Toronto, which needs to get on building multiple LRT lines as the only affordable way to address its transit woes, has really poisoned the discussion with "Subways, subways, subways" and muddying the difference between LRT and mixed-traffic streetcars.

So it's on us. We can show the cities like London and Hamilton and Mississauga and Scarborough just how LRT can work. We can give form and value to something that some just can't imagine until they see it in action.

But first we have to finish building it.

Please vote on Monday. Vote for leaders who will make LRT a reality. A lot is riding on this train.

A by-election of significance

A brief commentary for today, by-election day in Kitchener-Waterloo.

Today's a big day in KW. Provincial by-election here and in one other riding, where voters have the ability to push the minority Liberals into de facto majority territory-- or deny them that majority. The result has been a huge amount of attention paid to our area, as this column indicates.







We're having a by-election just 11 months after the last general provincial election, because of the resignation of two MPPs: Elizabeth Witmer here in KW, and Greg Sorbara in Vaughan.

I see the results here as having a huge influence on the next election. If the Libs can keep Vaughan and secure the KW seat, it's all quiet on the election front for the next few years as they'll control the house. If the NDP or the PCPO prevail, it could point the way towards how the province will swing in an inevitable no-confidence election some time in the next year or two. And while nobody expects the Greens to win, it will be interesting to see what kind of support will they garner, and how will that affect party platforms next time around.

And to top it all off, the KW result is no foregone conclusion. Nobody is sure how any of the big three will place.

Exciting!

Stephen Harper doesn't want my vote

Stephen Harper doesn't want my vote, but he'll use me to get yours.

I'm educated and fairly well paid. My companion 'Loon in this lake, as a full-time artist, is not so well paid. What probably makes Harper less interested in us is that we're childless.

(I should amend the above: Erin is an artist quasi-full-time, and also holds things together on the home front. I do her a disservice if I fail to mention the quality of life improvement I have benefited from since she left traditional full-time employment. For more on the true value of this unpaid work, and the threat of a so-called "Mommy War", read this excellent Globe article. But I'm getting ahead of myself.)

Given the situation we're in, whenever someone starts talking about income-splitting models for taxation, I sit up and take notice-- the same way I would if anyone proposes something that could put thousands of dollars in our pocket.

Income splitting, to put it briefly, is the practice of transferring part of the higher earning spouse's income to the other spouse for tax purposes. Under a progressive tax model, this means less tax is paid over all.

Of course, the promise itself is absolutely worthless. The Conservatives pledge to implement income splitting "when the deficit is eliminated"-- in other words, 2015 or 2016 (though Soudas has tweeted "as early as 2014".) Even in the event of a Conservative majority, we would see another election before this promise could be fulfilled.

Be that as it may, the really toxic part of this already cynical promise is that it is targeted at families with children under 18. In other words, you must be raising children to split your income for tax purposes. This is not tax reform, this is a baby bonus.

I'm not against some amount of support for families with children: our system aims to reduce taxation to compensate those with extra burdens. But besides the fact that someone is talking about income splitting in about the only form that would be of zero use to Erin and me, there are two fundamental flaws with this proposal as a means to support families.

One, of course, is that the size of the tax benefit scales with the size of the senior earner's income. Up to a certain point, the more you earn, the more tax break you will see. Since we base the argument for supporting families on the premise that they carry a heavier financial burden, what sense is a scheme doesn't help poorer families more?

The other flaw is clearly laid out in the Globe article I mentioned above. Two scenarios where a couple earns $110K (and you can already see how high we need to crank the income before the benefit is meaningful!) Couple A is a single-income family, while Couple B is split $60K/$50K. Under the current model Couple A is taxed more. And yet, Couple B has the lower standard of living! That's thanks to the fact that Couple A is richer-- the homeworking spouse can provide the same services that Couple B has to pay a lot more for: child care and even housekeeping. This labour is untaxed but it definitely has value.

So, not only is this a regressive tax break, but it also helps the couple that's better off to begin with.

In the meantime, there's a big hole left in our theoretically balanced future budget. A $2.5B hole. Someone is going to have to fill it, or cut that much out of the Government. Either way, it's paying more and getting less for Erin and me.

If you haven't been keeping score, let's recap. Harper's tax break promise:

• Benefits richer families more by flattening our progressive taxation system.
• Benefits single income families despite the fact they are better off already.
• Effectively forces everyone else to subsidize already well-off families.
• Is worthless as a campaign promise because it almost certainly won't be implemented before the next election.

Maybe it's just me. But at best, this is a campaign promise that asks me to subsidize a group that doesn't really need it. At worst, this is a cynical scheme by Harper to either buy you (for cheap!) or make a fool of you. Or both.