Liberals blasted over TransLink referendum plan
Posted April 16, 2013 9:50 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
SURREY (NEWS1130) – A key plank of the BC Liberals’ campaign platform isn’t going over well with the mayor of Surrey.
Dianne Watts is not happy with talk of a TransLink referendum — specifically, a referendum on funding that wouldn’t happen until the civic election in November 2014.
“I’m not quite sure why it would be a referendum at the municipal level because the tools are legislated by the province so it would seem to me that, you know, it should be through the provincial election,” she explains.
Watts also wonders how some things are put to a vote, while others aren’t.
“The tolls on the Port Mann Bridge or [the] Golden Ears, should that have gone to a referendum? Or, if there’s an increase in personal income tax or increased MSP, [an] increase in corporate taxes, do those go to a referendum?”
The proposal is one of the only new elements to emerge from the “Strong Economy, Secure Tomorrow” document the Liberals issued yesterday.
Watts fears putting transit funding and expansion to a vote could end up pitting parts of the region against each other.
She worries voters in places that already have SkyTrain would refuse to vote for the higher taxes needed to build infrastructure in Surrey and other areas currently under-served by TransLink.
