Canadian Federal Politics Thread v5

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Weitz

How does fuel taxes not just do the same thing?

For 18 of 24 hours roads do not have congestion on them so your use of a road doesn’t cost anyone else their use of the road. For these 18 hours roads are way over designed. If we assume the gas tax is notionally a user fee for roads then charging everyone the same fee for using the road regardless of time of use means non-peak users are subsidizing the peak users. In addition a user during peak periods also cause a time delay to other road users.

So we want to charge users in peak periods more to have them pay for the additional infrastructure for using that peak period as well as their portion of the delay they cause other people.

[SebC]

I have a hard time with mobility fees. I see the merit in them, but they can also become a tax on the poor.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by SebC

I have a hard time with mobility fees. I see the merit in them, but they can also become a tax on the poor.

Especially now that the professional class can mostly work from home.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by SebC

I have a hard time with mobility fees. I see the merit in them, but they can also become a tax on the poor.

Become? They absolutely are. Who do you think has the luxury of staying at home and ordering all their food, purchases, etc. to be delivered to them if they desire? Conversely, who are the people using their own vehicles to courier around these people's purchases at relatively low compensation rates? Cliff's point also stands.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Especially now that the professional class can mostly work from home.

Yes this is a completely new era in that regard.

[Aarongavey]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

Become? They absolutely are. Who do you think has the luxury of staying at home and ordering all their food, purchases, etc. to be delivered to them if they desire? Conversely, who are the people using their own vehicles to courier around these people's purchases at relatively low compensation rates? Cliff's point also stands.

Most poor people take public transit. For those that work in the gig economy they should just put any congestion fee on the bill and make the consumer pay for it. One thing rich folks never do is take public transit.

[Bs&Cs]

Yeah, poor people might but what about the blue collar folks who need their vehicles to work. Ever tried hauling your tools on a city bus? All these proposals sound like they come from the mind of someone who's never not worked in an office. There are an awful lot of people who aren't wealthy who cannot take transit to their jobs.

People wonder why the formerly solid left blue collar folks have flocked to the deplorables. This is why. The left has abandoned us.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Bs&Cs

Yeah, poor people might but what about the blue collar folks who need their vehicles to work. Ever tried hauling your tools on a city bus? All these proposals sound like they come from the mind of someone who's never not worked in an office. There are an awful lot of people who aren't wealthy who cannot take transit to their jobs.

People wonder why the formerly solid left blue collar folks have flocked to the deplorables. This is why. The left has abandoned us.

Are those centers area with significant congestion? The general concept is tax cars going into downtown to subsidize transit.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Bs&Cs

Yeah, poor people might but what about the blue collar folks who need their vehicles to work. Ever tried hauling your tools on a city bus? All these proposals sound like they come from the mind of someone who's never not worked in an office. There are an awful lot of people who aren't wealthy who cannot take transit to their jobs.

People wonder why the formerly solid left blue collar folks have flocked to the deplorables. This is why. The left has abandoned us.

Business use can get an exemption or rebate. I'd assume London congestion tax isn't paid by, say, delivery and service vehicles. Presumably your job would be easier with less traffic congestion.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

It's not that crazy. More and more cities are considering free transit. Like Kansas City.

KS like many American transit agencies barely collect any fares to begin with, even before COVID. Better to justify their existence and highly-paid executives with half loaded buses and trains with 0 fares then empty buses and trains.

New York City has done a study that free buses (not subway) alone would cost 1 billion a year.

In 2019, fares represented $1.2B in revenues for TTC.


https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/...ile-129535.pdf

The argument in Canada, where the average transit agency is much better run, is if you had the money to offset all fares whether it would be better to use that money to improve routes and frequencies?

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by accord1999

The argument in Canada, where the average transit agency is much better run, is if you had the money to offset all fares whether it would be better to use that money to improve routes and frequencies?

The latter might simply follow the former (ie. more riders = more routes/frequencies).

I think fares are a pretty significant deterrent to a lot of potential riders...even just the convenience/practicality of actually having coins/ticket/pass.

And we're bad at estimating the true cost of vehicle ownership/operation...but $7.20 for a return trip ain't exactly cheap.

[powderjunkie]

I meant to add - we live pretty close to the blue line and have considered taking the train for a trip to the zoo. But even though our kid is free, it would be $14.40 for my wife and I. Make that $19.30 once our kid turns 6.

25km round trip driving (free parking included in our pass) is gonna be like 3 litres of fuel in our minivan; so $5.25 (@$1.75/L) and another $1.25 ($.05/km maintenance) and it'll only be $6.50. Pretty easy to cut that cost in half with a more efficient vehicle.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

I meant to add - we live pretty close to the blue line and have considered taking the train for a trip to the zoo. But even though our kid is free, it would be $14.40 for my wife and I. Make that $19.30 once our kid turns 6.

25km round trip driving (free parking included in our pass) is gonna be like 3 litres of fuel in our minivan; so $5.25 (@$1.75/L) and another $1.25 ($.05/km maintenance) and it'll only be $6.50. Pretty easy to cut that cost in half with a more efficient vehicle.

You are missing capital depreciation in there but even if you use the full revenue Canada amount of like 60 cents per km you still only break even with a $15 trip. And that overstates cost if you are going to have a car by default anyway as insurance is a fixed rather than variable expense.

[OptimalTates]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

The latter might simply follow the former (ie. more riders = more routes/frequencies).

I think fares are a pretty significant deterrent to a lot of potential riders...even just the convenience/practicality of actually having coins/ticket/pass.

And we're bad at estimating the true cost of vehicle ownership/operation...but $7.20 for a return trip ain't exactly cheap.

Calgary has an app now. And given the debacle of implementing it, I'm assuming that most other cities have one as well by now too. No need for coins or tickets anymore, just need to make sure your phone is charged.

But one-off fares like that, outside of trying to avoid parking fees (Flames game) or stupid congestion (during Stampede), usually won't be economical. However, if you already had a monthly pass to get to work and your kids to school, then it becomes a "free" ride. If you can somehow get more people to get monthly passes, like some form of road toll, then you might increase monthly passes and therefore people using it for trips to the zoo.

[PostandIn]

https://twitter.com/globeandmail/sta...RRBlfm9FCxldvQ

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendocino (Marco Mendacious, amirite) being pressured to resign after repeatedly lying in the House and in Committee, that the Trudeau government only invoked the Emergencies Act because law enforcement told them it was required. A position the agencies state is false.

But meantime there is the court of public opinion, as convened in Parliament and its committees, and in this the government has made a spectacular mess of things. As if in obedience to some feral instinct, it has returned to the same discreditable tactics on which it has relied in the past, whenever it has been cornered: SNC-Lavalin, WE Charity, the Winnipeg lab incident, the list goes on.

These tactics are: stonewall (it has made no commitment to surrender the relevant cabinet documents, even to the judicial inquiry), blame the public service (in this case, unnamed law enforcement officials, at whose request, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino has repeatedly claimed, the decision was made), haul in top civil servants to provide cover (the minister’s “intention” had been “misunderstood,” Deputy Minister of Public Safety Rob Stewart told the special joint parliamentary committee looking into the decision this week), and, when all else fails, lie.

[CaptainCrunch]

Marco has been a steady liar since he first got in. The running joke is his aides having to go back to the press and accusing them of not understanding what he's been saying.


I still think that if an MP is caught blatantly lying in the house or too the Canadian people that it should be a major fine and expulsion from the house. Lying by politicians has become a tool that's used way to often.

[CaptainCrunch]

The whole emergency powers committee has shown what a fiasco that was in terms of the government, and declaring it.

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I still think that if an MP is caught blatantly lying in the house or too the Canadian people that it should be a major fine and expulsion from the house. Lying by politicians has become a tool that's used way to often.

Conservatives would have no one left then.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

Conservatives would have no one left then.

We also wouldn't have a Prime Minister, or deputy prime minister or any Liberal Cabinet members.


And yeah, like I said, all parties use lying as a casual tool. They have a low opinion of the average canadian.

[Harry Lime]

https://globalnews.ca/news/8911111/j...ricas-june-10/

Summit of the Americas. Trudeau basically came down to two issues, other than a string of platitudes.

The two also discussed supply chains and co-operating on “the potential of developing critical minerals in both countries” and protecting supply chains from “external shocks,” the White House said.

Great! This is oil and gas in Alberta and NFLD, and mines in NWT/Nunavut that will expand jobs/influence in the area and limit the monopoly that China currently holds. Too bad it's really vague and doesn't commit Canada to anything.

Also Thursday, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault and U.S. Environmental Protection Secretary Jared Blumenfeld signed a new framework for climate-change co-operation that included modest expansions on a similar 2019 agreement.

And it will stand the test of time, said California Gov. Gavin Newsom – regardless of who is in power in the California governor’s mansion, the White House or the Prime Minister’s Office.

Gaddammit.