WHY METRO VANCOUVER SHOULD VOTE NO IN THE TRANSIT PLEBISCITE Residents of Metro Vancouver should vote “NO” in a plebiscite in March on a proposal to increase the sales tax. The money generated by the increase is to help pay for over $7 Billion in transportation improvements. According to the Mayors in Metro Vancouver, those “improvements” will relieve the congestion caused by adding 1 million people to Metro by 2040.
The Mayors have stated that they have no “PLAN B”, implying that there is no alternative. But it is very clear that there is one : The Mayors should unite to call for a dramatic cut to unnecessary immigration. It has been responsible for over 83% of Metro’s huge population increase since 1991 when Canada’s mass immigration policy began. It will soon be responsible for close to 100% of the 1 million population increase. Metro Vancouver’s population in 1991 was 1.6 million. It is now over 2.5 million. If the immigration madness continues, it will be 3.5 million in 2040.
Residents should vote “NO” for the following reasons :
There is no point to having 3.5 million people living here by 2040. Canada’s average yearly intake of 250,000 immigrants per year is corrupt and abnormal. It is a policy, not a constitutional requirement. It could be changed easily. Our federal government has never provided any justification for this intake. If there is no justification for the high intake, then there is no justification for huge unnecessary infrastructure expenditures that result from the intake. If Metro prevents the congestion, then Metro won’t need a “Congestion Improvement Tax”. If there were ever a time for Metro politicians to show some backbone, this is it.
Instead, the Mayors are trying to deceive the public by not saying why the area needs all the extra infrastructure. Two sample ballots that Metro Vancouver has published demonstrate the deceit. The first one began with this statement : “One million more people will live and work in Metro Vancouver by 2040. The region’s mayors worked together to develop a plan to reduce congestion on roads and bridges and to provide more transit to communities across the region.” To be blunt, this means that the Mayors didn’t have the guts to stand up to Ottawa and now they want residents to pay for their gutlessness.
The second sample ballot, the one that residents will use, says nothing about an additional 1 million people living in Metro Vancouver. The obvious question is “WHY?” The clear answer is that the Mayors and Councillors do not want Metro to ask who these 1 million people are and why they are coming here. The answer to “Who are these people” is unnecessary immigrants. The answer to “Why are they coming here?” is that all of our federal parties are equally gutless and scared that if they stand up for the majority of Canadians, they will lose their share of the immigrant vote.
None of the conventional reasons given for immigration such as the supposed necessity to deal with an aging population or the supposed need to stimulate the area’s economy are true. The federal government’s own research has shown that Canada should not use immigration to solve problems caused by an aging population. It has also shown that immigration provides no significant stimulus to the economy. In fact, recent research of thousands of income tax returns demonstrates that immigrants are taking close to $30 Billion per year more in benefits out of the economy that they are contributing in taxes.
Municipalities like to plead that they don’t have power over matters such as immigration. Yet, they often grovel to Ottawa for other things and manage to get concessions by doing so. The point is that now is an even more important time to get concessions and to avoid a senseless 1 million increase in Metro Vancouver’s population and the accompanying massive expenditures.
Municipalities should also stop pretending that their Green strategies will solve problems created by a massive population increase here. The truth is that Ottawa’s senseless high immigration policy will negate all the gains that might be achieved by Green strategies. For example, Vancouver boasts that it will become the Greenest City in the world. Meanwhile, it is clear-cutting huge areas of single-family detached houses in order to make room for high rise condos. The new people need resources such as water, heat and food. These demands will create huge new environmental pressures—as well as huge amounts of waste. In 2014, Metro shipped about 170,000 tonnes of garbage to places like Washington State. Annually, it generates about 900,000 tonnes of garbage, including single-family waste. What will these Green hypocrites say in 2040 when a new federal government wants to increase Metro Vancouver’s population by another 1 million?
The current municipal cast in Metro Vancouver does not seem capable of understanding that there are limits to an area’s ability to absorb people.
Metro Vancouver, Southern Ontario and many other urban areas in Canada reached that limit years ago. Canada desperately needs governments to develop some backbone and to stabilize our population.
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http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/
http://www.vancouversun.com/