VICTORIA — Premier Christy Clark says Metro Vancouver leaders can “forget it” if they expect her government to approve any new taxes to pay for transit services without first putting it to a vote in another referendum.

Clark defended her government’s 2013 election promise that any new transit funding proposed by Lower Mainland mayors, such as road tolling, needs to be approved by voters.

“I think people want a chance to decide if there’s going to be a new tax,” Clark said in an interview with The Vancouver Sun on Tuesday.

“If (mayors) want a new way to raise taxes, their one-third (of funding), they are going to have to go and ask the people. That’s the referendum.”

Clark said there are lessons to be learned from the July transit plebiscite, in which Metro voters soundly rejected a half-percentage-point sales tax hike to pay for a $7.5-billion, 10-year transit plan.

“I think it’s good that we asked because the alternative would have been to impose something on people they didn’t want,” she said.

“The alternative would have been, which some people are advocating, just go out and force this new tax on people without giving them a say in it. And my position on that is, forget it.”

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson told The Sun this week that it’s unfair the province requires a referendum for transit funding while it freely spends without a vote on hospitals, schools, highways and bridges in other parts of the province.

The reason for this, said Clark, is because hospitals and schools are paid for out of an existing provincial tax base and government isn’t raising taxes or charging residents a new fee.

Metro mayors can raise property taxes to fund transit without provincial approval, said Clark, though the mayors have refused to do so and want to look at other funding sources.

“I think it’s a pretty fair position to take, to say: ‘Look, the mayors’ council and the mayors have a source of funding already,’” she said. “If they would like to get a new (funding source), they should go to referendum and ask people if they are prepared to pay for that.”

Metro mayors are urgently researching mobility pricing as a possible way to ease traffic congestion and generate funds. That type of pricing can include tolls on roads and bridges, or charges for distance travelled or road usage.

Such a proposal could be complex to explain to voters in the context of a referendum. In the last vote, some residents appeared to cast ballots based on their dissatisfaction with TransLink, its executive pay and bungled projects such as the Compass Card system.

Clark said a second vote could be easier.

“Referenda in other places have passed and sometimes it’s been complicated,” she said. “Not all of them passed the first time.

“The reason they generally passed the second time is the proponents, in this case the mayors, learned from their mistakes. They learned how to get out there and engage the public in the proposal and really get out there and gauge the public’s support for it. But I don’t think the complexity is beyond most citizens’ ability to understand.”

The premier also brushed aside suggestions she’s leaving the region’s transit needs out to dry.

“I want to get TransLink fixed,” she said.

“I think we’ve got to fix TransLink so that people have confidence in the system, and once they have confidence in the system it will be easier to mayors to raise their one-third, I think. People didn’t say no to transit, they said no to TransLink, which is an organization they don’t trust, and they said no to new taxes.”

rshaw@vancouversun.com

===

Click here to report a typo or visit vancouversun.com/typo.

Is there more to this story? We'd like to hear from you about this or any other stories you think we should know about. CLICK HERE or go to vancouversun.com/moretothestory