...Translink Fare Evasion Or The (not) Premier's Commercial Flight Evasion?
First, from the razor-sharp transit-oriented mind of Stephen Rees, a thorough and complete takedown of the 'Fare Evasion Is Out Of Control!' mantra of the screamers and headline writers:
...What really needs to be compared is the rate of fare evasion. In 2001 it was around 8.1% of transit revenue. In 2011 transit revenue was $444.7m (source: 2011 Year End Financial and Performance report) $433m coming from fares – so the rate of loss was 3.3% of fare revenue (3.2% of transit revenue).
Actually, there was some work done on fare evasion around that time, by KPMG and in a report in 2002 they estimated fare evasion at $6.7m or 3.9% – but conceded that the lack of data on buses meant that it could have been 4%, or $1.4m more. Indeed 4% is one of those easy to remember figures that is still in my head, and I am glad that I have now got the source for that.
So the headline does seem to be misleading. Forget the use of 2001 as a base year, since clearly things were not “normal” then, and look at the long term trend and it seems to me that the best estimate we have of Translink is that the rate of fare evasion has been reduced – from around 4% to something closer to 3%, And that is before the new measures to improve collection on fines had been implemented...
Second, a story we covered yesterday that was broken by the Merry FOIR-ster, Bob Mackin:
...Premier Christy Clark has spent $185,027.86 on 25 trips from March 18, 2011 through Aug. 1, 2012 on a charter airline owned by a prominent BC Liberal bagman...
{snippety doo-dah}
...Cabinet members are allowed to take charter flights if they're on government business, their destination is not adequately served by scheduled service and/or if their schedule dictates they cannot wait for a scheduled flight...
{snippety doodle-dandy}
...Clark made four trips in three weeks for $38,600 on Blackcomb Aviation during July 2012, including a one-day, $15,470.07 trip on July 19 to Regina and Edmonton. She met Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall during the first stop and Alison Redford, the Alberta premier, on the second. The meeting with Redford was called the "Secret Summit," because Clark was whisked in and out of the Alberta Legislature with no notice or fanfare. Along for the ride were deputy minister Neil Sweeney, aide Gabe Garfinkel and the bodyguard.
Such is life aboard charter jets, which use a private terminal on the south side of Vancouver International Airport...
OK?
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And, need we explain who is raking in our dough on both fronts?....Think 'turnstiles' and 'private jets'...
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2 comments:
There is a minister in Ottawa, who used $3 million of our tax dollars, for his plane fares. In only one year.
Bev Oda isn't the only one, who liked her luxury hotel suites either.
Mere dribbles in the bucket, for the waste of our tax dollars, by both Harper's Conservatives and the BC Liberals.
Tax abuses so obscene with waste and thefts. They just aren't sustainable. Nor are outrageous salary's and gold plated pensions.
Dippers are ruinous. When the corruption can't be met with tax dollars. They slash the services, we pay through the nose for. They give huge corporations more of our tax dollars. They get more tax reductions. Then comes more slashing, to feed the parasites.....You get the gist.
Corrupt governments, have destroyed many, many country's. Harper started out with a, $13 billion surplus. He has Canada in the worst debt, in the recorded history of this Nation. However, China owns us now.
China is taking our country, resources and our jobs. Child laborers in China, only earn pennies a day. The poor in China are very poor, with no Human Rights, what-so-ever.
Anon--
And then there are the bodyguards...
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