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FINANCIAL POST COLUMN: City council rules – buses for thee, free parking for me

Underground car parking interior in basememnt floor shopping mall, office business center or residential apartment building. Covered vehicle garage indoor. urban transportation facilities background.

“A bus pass for thee, a free parking pass for me,” is apparently the unofficial climate motto for a number of city councils in Canada, new research by SecondStreet.org shows.

Despite declaring “climate emergencies,” urging the public to get out of their cars and take transit, and calling for the phase-out of natural gas, 19 Canadian cities have handed out over 5,400 free parking passes to city council members, city staff and other politicians.

To be clear, giving elected officials and staff free parking passes is not terribly controversial. Many private businesses provide senior executives and staff with free parking.

But considering that many elected officials have been declaring “climate emergencies,” taking free parking passes at the same time is a contradiction, to say the least. Free parking encourages driving to work — the very activity cities have been trying to get the public to avoid.

When Calgary elected a new city council in 2021 one of its first major orders of business was to declare a “climate emergency.” Vancouver, Edmonton, Montreal and many other cities across Canada had already declared such “emergencies.”

Yet, City of Calgary data show the city is quite generous with the free parking passes it hands out — 1,072 free passes in 2020 alone. In addition to parkade passes, city council members also receive special “Park as Required” cards that allow them to park at metered parking spots for free anywhere in the city. Maybe the new council will cut the passes now that there’s a climate emergency?

In Ontario, 33 cities have called for phasing-out natural gas-powered electricity. The emissions from natural gas are a fraction of what coal-power plants emit, yet the relatively clean fuel source is still in the crosshairs of activists and some politicians. In the meantime, many of these same cities have been handing out thousands of free parking passes.

The City of Toronto gave out 1,267 free parking passes. In 2019, media reported that the city had even been providing free parking passes to former city staff.

Hamilton, Mississauga and Burlington gave out over one thousand passes combined. St. Catharines not only gave free passes to all council members, it also provided free passes to provincial and federal politicians, as well as the president and vice-president of Brock University.

Winnipeg’s city council, which represents one of the coldest cities on the planet, wants to completely phase out natural gas — a key energy source for home heating and industrial usage. Within hours of city council’s musings on the idea, Manitoba Hydro, the province’s power utility, confirmed this was not remotely feasible anytime soon. It turns out the frigid prairie city also gives out hundreds of parking passes each year.

Victoria, the greenest city in Canada (at least according to Victorians), was arguably the worst offender in the country. It gave out 173 free parking passes in total, including 97 for politicians – most don’t even live in Victoria. Even Green Party MP Elizabeth May received one.

To be clear, it’s important for city governments to discuss reducing emissions. However, many governments would be wise to shift their climate discourse from impractical bravado to realistic solutions. Canada is a cold, vastly spread-out country that requires great amounts of energy to generate heat in the winter and transport people and goods over long distances.

Solar and wind power are welcome technologies — consumers benefit when there’s more competition for energy production. But the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine. Weather-dependent energy sources need back-up power options such as natural gas — a source in which Canada is a leader.

Again, it’s fine for cities to encourage the public to take transit, ride bicycles and think about how city policies could be designed to help reduce emissions. But that message loses its credibility when those pushing it are parking for free.

 

Colin Craig is president of SecondStreet.org, a public policy think tank.

This column was published by the Financial Post on June 28, 2022.

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Walter Robinson

Director​

Walter Robinson was was born and raised in Toronto and has lived for over 30 years in Ottawa where he earned an Honours Bachelor of Commerce degree from Carleton University. His public affairs career has included progressive roles of leadership in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors.

He has served as the Federal Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, sought federal public office as a MP-candidate and participated as member of PM’s debate team twice, was the Chief of Staff to the Mayor of Ottawa, and presently runs his own public affairs consultancy with a focus on the life sciences ecosystem (the pharmaceutical sector, patients organizations and health charities). 

Walter has been accorded several civic honours for his diverse record of community service which is punctuated by his passion for governance roles in health systems delivery and three decades of fundraising for leading-edge cancer research.

Prevention – reduce demand in the first place

If Canadians lived healthier lives, we could reduce demand for emergency services, orthopaedic surgeries, primary care and more. 

For instance, if you visit the Canadian Cancer Society’s website, you’ll read that “about four in ten” cancer cases are preventable. The Heart and Stroke Foundation notes that “almost 80 percent of premature heart disease and stroke can be prevented through healthy behaviours.” A similar number of Diabetes cases are also preventable. 

Many joint replacements and visits to ERs and walk-in clinics could also be avoided through healthy living. 

To be sure, not all health problems can be avoided through healthy living – everyday the system treats Canadians with genetic conditions, helps those injured in unavoidable accidents and more.  

But there is an opportunity to reduce pressure on the health care system through Canadians shifting to healthier lifestyles – better diets, more exercise, etc. 

To learn more, watch our Health Reform Now documentary (scroll up) or see this column. 

Partner with non-profits and for-profit clinics

European countries will partner with anyone who can help patients. 

It doesn’t matter if it’s a non-profit, a government entity or a private clinic. What matters is that patients receive quality treatment, in a timely manner and for a competitive price.  

In Canada, governments often delivery services using government-run hospitals instead of seeing if non-profit or private clinics could deliver the services more effectively. 

When governments have partnered with non-profit and private clinics, the results have often been quite good – Saskatchewan, Ontario and British Columbia are just a few examples of where partnerships have worked well. 

Canada should pursue more of these partnerships to reduce wait times and increase the volume of services provided to patients.  

To learn more, watch our Health Reform Now documentary (scroll up) or see the links above. 

Make cross border care more accessible

In Canada, citizens pay high taxes each year and we’re promised universal health care services in return. The problem is, wait times are often extremely long in our health system – sometimes patients have to wait years to see a specialist or receive surgery. 

If patients don’t want to wait long periods, they often have to reach into their own pocket and pay for treatment outside the province or country. 

Throughout the European Union, we also find universal health care systems. But a key difference is that EU patients have the right to go to other EU countries, pay for surgery and then be reimbursed by their home government. Reimbursements cover up to what the patient’s home government would have spent to provide the treatment locally. 

If Canada copied this approach, a patient waiting a year to get their hip operation could instead receive treatment next week in one of thousands of surgical clinics throughout the developed world. 

Governments benefit too as the patient is now back on their feet and avoiding complications that sometimes come with long wait times – meaning the government doesn’t have to treat those complications on top of the initial health problem. 

To learn more, watch our Health Reform Now documentary (scroll up) or this shorter video. 

Legalize access to non-government providers

Canada is the only country in the world that puts up barriers, or outright bans patients from paying for health services locally. 

For instance, a patient in Toronto cannot pay for a hip operation at a private clinic in Toronto. Their only option is to wait for the government to eventually provide treatment or leave the province and pay elsewhere. 

Countries with better-performing universal health care systems do not have such bans. They allow patients a choice – use the public system or pay privately for treatment. Sweden, France, Australia and more – they all allow choice. 

Why? One reason is that allowing choice means some patients will decide to pay privately. This takes pressure off the public system. For instance, in Sweden, 87% of patients use the public system, but 13% purchase private health insurance. 

Ultimately, more choice improves access for patients. 

To learn more, watch our Health Reform Now documentary (scroll up) or watch this short clip on this topic. 

Shift to funding services for patients, not bureaucracies

In Canada, most hospitals receive a cheque from the government each year and are then asked to do their best to help patients. This approach is known as “block funding”. 

Under this model, a patient walking in the door represents a drain on the hospital’s budget. Over the course of a year, hospital administrators have to make sure the budget stretches out so services are rationed. This is why you might have to wait until next year or the year after for a hip operation, knee operation, etc. 

In better-performing universal health systems, they take the opposite approach – hospitals receive money from the government each time they help a patient. If a hospital completes a knee operation, it might receive, say, $10,000. If it completes a knee operation on another patient, it receives another $10,000. 

This model incentivizes hospitals to help more patients – to help more patients with knee operations, cataract surgery, etc. This approach also incentivizes hospitals to spend money on expenses that help patients (e.g. more doctors, nurses, equipment, etc.) rather than using the money on expenses that don’t help patients (e.g. more admin staff). 

To learn more about this policy option, please watch our Health Reform Now documentary (scroll up) or see this post by MEI.