Sunshine Coast Regional District directors once again debated the merits of a possible fuel tax to subsidize transit plans on Jan. 14 during their infrastructure services committee meeting.
Some felt the idea was out of the question due to the high cost of fuel already on the Sunshine Coast.
“We are paying the highest price for gasoline of anywhere in southwest B.C.,” said West Howe Sound director Ian Winn, who ran the gasoline price figures through his computer before the meeting.
He said adding a fuel tax on top of those high prices “would be akin to poking the drivers on the Coast in the eye with a hot stick and saying, ‘You’re going to have to pay even more,’ and I just can’t support this at this time.”
Gibsons director Silas White said there wasn’t much appetite in Gibsons for a fuel tax. “What we do support is strong provincial advocacy,” he said.
A staff report on the subject suggested a fuel tax of 3.8 cents per litre would have to be levied just to stay at the same funding level now garnered through property tax. The report said that only one form of funding could be utilized by the regional district – property tax or fuel surcharge.
Roberts Creek director Mark Lebbell, who first brought forward the idea of a fuel surcharge, noted he wanted more information before throwing the idea out altogether.
He moved that the board write Kevin Volk, executive director of transit and Crown agency programs with the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, with regard to how the current BC Transit model would be impacted by a fuel tax.
He noted the motion was vague enough “to allow for staff and chair to decide on a strategic political approach.”
White said the answer has already been provided in previous reports to the board and added that he would be more interested in looking at ways to find savings in the current transit budget that could be applied to transit improvements.
“I just don’t think pursuing this gas tax based on the information we’ve already received quite definitively from the province is going to get us where we need to go on the Sunshine Coast, and it’s not something that people are particularly excited about,” White said.
When the question was called to write to Volk for more information, all but White were in favour and the motion passed.
“I think the thing that this does is gives us an access to the deputy minister in which we can ensure that the injustices of the system can be made to him, and that can’t hurt,” noted Pender Harbour director Frank Mauro.
