'Coz if you are a new party, looking to break into the political mainstream, you want to make your pitch by telling voters, "Vote for us, pay even MORE for gas!"
They would have had a better reception had they, oh I don't know, suggested we build a better transit system in the cities. Most people wouldn't abandon cars if the gas prices rose by 12 cents. Hell, it rose by more than 30 cents since last year (from 75c/l) and I am still driving to work (albeit painfully). You know what would stop me, and I suspect most people, from taking their car to work?
A much better, and connected, transit system. Where a 10 minute drive by car does not take an hour to go by transit. If they connect Scarborough in Toronto to the subway by, for example constructing a north-south line through Markham Road, suddenly much of the cars that now clog-up the 401 from Kennedy to Morningside would disappear. And I suspect it's much the same in most of the major cities in Canada.
Miller had a good idea by making the Metropass transferable and affordable so more people take the transit to work. It's time to take the next step and expand the subway.
Not having stupid ideas by trying to punish people for just living their daily lives.
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Yeah. Because people will stampede to do the right thing in the absence of any financial incentive.
There are two choices: increase the price of gas (or do nothing, and permit market forces to increase the price of gas), causing people to have to pay more money; or expand public transit to the point of actual usability by building more subways (which costs money) or buying more busses (which costs money), causing people to have to pay more money.
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