Now that John Horgan and the NDP are going to assume power with some form of coalition government involving the Green Party, I am sure there will be an endless supply of letters reminding us about the Fast Ferry Fiasco and the bad old days of the high-taxes NDP.
I have talked a number of times about these issues.
Given all of the government projects which have overrun their budgets and underperformed upon completion, it is strange that the ferries stick in people's minds.
Perhaps the media had something to do with it as the number of references to "fast ferries" during their construction and initial operation was prodigious.
In part, the opposition led the way as they seized this particular bone and gnawed on it endlessly.
Before the 2001 election, it was almost as if the answer to every question was "fast ferries.
But since then the cost overruns on other projects have dwarfed the ferries.
Consider, for example, the Port Mann Bridge and widening of Highway 1.
The government announced in January 2009 an agreement in principle for a public-private partnership. This became a fixed-price contract for the construction of the bridge.
The original estimate for the whole project: $800 million for the bridge replacement, $500 million for widening Highway 1, $400 million for the North Fraser Perimeter Road and $800 million for the South Fraser Perimeter Road, with a $300 million contingency built in for cost overruns. The total cost was $2.8 billion, give or take.
But the Port Mann budget soon became $1.4 billion, then $1.6 billion, then $2.7 billion, and when finally completed $3.32 billion. The bridge alone costs more than the initial estimate for the entire project!
And the first winter it was in operation, ice chunks dropped from the superstructure damaging vehicles on the car deck. One could make the facetious argument that the bridge did work because it required additional money to fix the problem.
The rationale for the bridge was the estimated 800,000 vehicles using the route every week and yet vehicular traffic is down significantly from those numbers. On the whole, the bridge has been something of a boondoggle. It costs the taxpayers billions more than initial costs and is now going to cost us even more.
It is not the only cost overrun under the B.C. Liberals. Of the 18 projects costing more than $150 million since 2003, every single one has come in over-budget. The Vancouver Convention Centre and the B.C. Place re-roofing both came in at 68.1 per cent over the initial estimates.
Put another way, the price tag of any government announcement about any major infrastructure project is going to be wrong - whether it is the Sea-to-Sky or Coquihalla Highways, the purchase of new ferries or the reconstruction of a roof on BC Place.
So why harp about the fast ferries?
If government excess and waste is the issue, there are many more projects to pick from.
Or is just the fast ferries was an infrastructure project under the NDP?
As to taxes, we constantly hear about how over-taxed we are. As I have said before, for the most part I think I get good value for my taxes.
A 2009 study, Canada's Quiet Bargain: The Benefits of Public Spending, stated: "For the vast majority of Canada's population, public services are, to put it bluntly, the best deal they are ever going to get ... in median income households, their benefit from public services amounts to $41,000 per year - equivalent to roughly 63 per cent of their total income."
These benefits arise from health care, education, transportation, personal transfer payments and other forms of infrastructure. The cost we pay in personal taxes is a small fraction of the benefit we get - both tangible and intangible.
Every year we hear from the Fraser Institute and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation how we are being taxed to death. The Fraser Institute even goes so far as to calculate a tax freedom day. They tell us we don't start working for ourselves until sometime in June.
But we are always working for ourselves. The taxes we pay come back in the form of programs and infrastructure which we require. Taxes aren't collected and banked by the government. The money re-circulates into the economy.
On the whole, Canada at 32 per cent is on the low end of the scale with regard to taxes as a percentage of the national GDP. Our tax rate is lower than France (45 per cent), Germany (37 per cent), and the United Kingdom (34 per cent) to name a few other countries.
Our tax rate is higher than the United States (27 per cent). As they are our closest neighbor, we often use this as a comparison but just think about all the things they do without such as healthcare and other infrastructure.
Our taxes are part of our high standard of living and benefit us if spent well.
