Hammering Taxpayers for a Pie-in-the-Sky Promise
Nanaimo Taxpayers Are Being Asked to Buy Hope
Nanaimo taxpayers should stop being told this hospital tax hike is a matter of simple necessity.
Yes, Nanaimo needs better hospital infrastructure. That part is not in dispute.
What is in dispute is the fairness of hammering local taxpayers now for a project that still is not publicly secured at the construction stage. Right now, taxpayers are being asked to carry a steep burden for a plan that remains long on promises and short on certainty.
That is not prudence. That is risk.
Meanwhile, local taxpayers are being told to front-load real money into concept work, business planning, and related commitments to help move the project along. In plain English, Nanaimo residents are being asked to pay early so Victoria might move later.
And this is happening while provincial finances are under obvious strain.
If anyone thinks that risk is theoretical, they should look at what just happened in Delta and Burnaby.
In both places, health-care projects were publicly described as still being part of the plan. In both places, contracts were cancelled anyway. That should send a chill through Nanaimo. If Delta can lose a contract and Burnaby Hospital can lose a contract, Nanaimo taxpayers should not be told that planning-stage language amounts to security.
They should not be expected to confuse “still in the plan” with “money secured.”
They should not be asked to front-load taxes on faith.
Because that is what this really is: asking taxpayers to buy hope.
And hope is not cheap.
Supporters of the levy say this approach will save interest. Maybe on the government’s books. But that does not mean it saves money in the real world. When governments tax harder now to avoid borrowing more themselves, they may simply be shifting the financing pain onto households that borrow at much higher rates. That is not true savings. That is cost transfer.
Even Janice Perrino has acknowledged that the current 40 per cent local-share model is unsustainable. Fair enough. But if it is unsustainable, why are Nanaimo taxpayers being asked to sustain it anyway?
That is the question voters should be asking, loudly, in an election year.
No one is saying Nanaimo should not fight for better health care. But taxpayers have every right to say this: do not hit us now for a project still sitting at the planning stage, under a funding model admitted to be unsustainable, while other health projects are being delayed or cancelled anyway.
When your tax notice arrives this year, ask yourself one simple question: will the NRGH tax bite ever produce results? And remember this as well: your city councillors have a say in that tax bite.
That is not a small point. It is the point.
Because this is not just about hospitals. It is about accountability. It is about whether elected officials are asking struggling taxpayers to carry real costs now for outcomes that may or may not ever fully materialize.
That is not prudent planning.
That is taxpayers being told to pay first and ask questions later.
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