Pubdate: Fri, 09 Dec 2016
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Daphne Bramham
Page: A1

TAX HIKE FOR FENTANYL CRISIS IS POLITICAL SLEIGHT OF HAND

It's well meaning, but city has no plan or resources to help
users

The proposal to increase Vancouver property tax by 0.5 per cent to
deal in some unspecified way with the fentanyl crisis is either stupid
or a clever, but cynical, political sleight of hand.

Let's start with stupid.

Health and drug policy are the responsibilities of the federal and
provincial governments, both of which have much greater access to the
resources and levers needed to deal with this crisis that began in
Vancouver and is spreading quickly across the country.

I grant that the desire to do something about fentanyl may be well
meaning - nobody wants people dying on the streets.

But the city has no plan, even though fentanyl was declared a public
health emergency last April.

Even if it did have a plan, no attempt appears to have been made to
find money from somewhere within the proposed budget that will already
result in a substantial tax increase. So, I'm leaning toward the
second option: Clever, cynical politics.

The 2017 budget put together by the mayor's team is another
expansionary budget that goes well beyond the annual population growth
to fund.

The proposed $1.32-billion operating expenses can be funded only with
a 3.4 per cent increase in property taxes plus a 1.2 per cent rise in
various fees.

It is unpopular for a whole bunch of reasons - not least of which is
that Vancouver is one of the most expensive cities in the world to
live and the median family income here is only $67,090 a year. That
median income ranks Vancouverites 22nd among all Canadian metropolitan
area residents. Vancouver families are hanging on by their fingernails
to stay in the city.

And now, they are potentially facing a property tax increase that is
double the inflation rate.

But wait, suddenly there was more when a special memo about the
fentanyl tax was tabled at a special council meeting only a week
before the vote on the budget. Suddenly, everybody's talking about a
0.5 per cent fentanyl levy and not the 3.4 per cent tax increase.

What's in the news is the slightly hysterical and unfocused proposal
that essentially says: Give us more money. There is a crisis that may
get better or it may get worse. People are dying.

That last part is true. People are dying from the deadly opioid - 124
in Vancouver and a total of 662 in B.C. in the first 10 months of the
year.

No one has articulated what the $3.5-million fentanyl tax would be
used for, nor has anyone suggested that this is a one-off that would
be eliminated when the crisis abates.

What the special memo says is that it will top up an existing
$4-million slush ... I mean contingency ... fund. It might be used for
some new programs in the 2017 budget, which account for 1.2 per cent
of the proposed tax increase.

Or the money might be used for "new opportunities" to address the
crisis.

The urgency was reinforced when the mayor invited citizens to a
hastily arranged public forum on Thursday night, the same night that
for days we had been warned that a giant snowstorm was going to
paralyze the city.

Yet even before the special memo was tabled at city hall, the
firefighters' union had demanded more firefighters and a new fire
truck to battle the fentanyl crisis. The mayor has already said he is
"certainly interested in seeing the option for more funds to support
our first responders."

But, just a few hours before the mayor's forum, the province opened
two overdose-prevention sites on the Downtown Eastside and promised to
open several more later this month. Starting Dec. 13, its B.C. mobile
medical unit staffed with emergency doctors, nurses and addictions
specialists will be stationed in the Downtown Eastside. And, rightly
so. It is health professionals, not firefighters and police, who
should be the primary responders to the more than 700 calls each month
in Vancouver.

But here's the clever, cynical beauty of the late-in-the-game proposal
for a special fentanyl levy. If, between a city gridlocked by snowfall
and gripped by fear about fentanyl and the prospect of a new deadly
wave of carfentanil, there is support for the special levy, civic
leaders will have done everything they can.

They will also - because the wording in the special memo is so vague -
nearly double the amount in a contingency fund that could be used for
anything from "public realm cleanliness," street order and security in
the Downtown Eastside, to transitional housing, to implementation of
the empty homes tax, to increasing the library's collections.

But, if it seems that the 0.5 per cent special fentanyl levy might not
fly, the Vision Vancouver majority can cut and run, leaving taxpayers
slightly relieved to be facing only a 4.6 per cent rate increase.
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MAP posted-by: Matt