Don Cayo: In my opinion

Mostly yes: But we don’t get consistent bang for our bucks, as government auditors’ reports have revealed

Do we get what we pay for when it comes to taxes? Or, conversely, do we pay for what we get?

NPart one of two columns

o more taxes; we’re taxed to death; we pay enough already. Variations of this refrain — all rooted in the belief that governments collect enough money to do what needs doing, if only they would spend wisely — reverberate whenever taxes are discussed.

Is it true? Do we get what we pay for when it comes to taxes? Or conversely, do we pay for what we get?

It sounds contradictory, but my short answer to both questions is no, we don’t — at least not all the time. This column elaborates on the first answer, and Saturday’s will expand on the second.

To be fair, we citizens do get considerable value for our tax dollars. As Canadians, British Columbians and Metro Vancouverites, we enjoy a quality of life that is rarely surpassed anywhere in the world. Our infrastructure, our social services, our security all are — despite flaws — generally excellent compared with everywhere else.

Yet we clearly don’t get consistent value from every tax dollar.

Not that it’s easy to put a precise figure on government waste. Auditors try — or at least the federal and provincial ones do, although it is not apparent B.C.’s short-lived, first municipal auditor general made much effort despite the $5.2 million her fledgling office spent. But the annual assessments published by even the best auditors general over the years add up to mere spot checks in a relative handful of specific areas.

So let me cherry-pick a few examples from recent headlines:

• The sizable pay and benefit differentials between city hall employees and their private- sector peers (not to mention the allegations of a sweetheart arrangement between Vision Vancouver politicians and their civic union).

• The far-behind-schedule TransLink fare gates that may become this decade’s version of the NDP’s $450-million fast ferry fiasco in the 1990s, or the Liberals’ $400-million cost overruns for the Vancouver Convention Centre in the mid-2000s.

• The bizarre story unfolding in court of how it took 240 Mounties, some working for months, to pull off a sting that may or may not land a couple of drug-addled terrorist wannabes in jail for trying, with coaching and logistical help from the cops, to blow up the legislature.

• The Duffy trial, which is — although it has barely begun and it may or may not lead to a conviction — already reinforcing reasons for citizens to distrust politicians.

The list could go on and on. Vote-buying. Incompetence and inertia. Corruption and cronyism. Skewed, sometimes screwy, priorities. Yet, some criticisms are unfair.

Jock Finlayson, executive vicepresident of the Business Council of B.C., notes that, when it comes to judging a government’s priorities, the difficulty is often that citizens disagree. Some think governments should build stadiums or bike lanes, or subsidize businesses or the arts. Some beg to differ, often strongly.

Finlayson also notes that when any organization is big — and governments are very big — mistakes are bound to occur.

SFU public policy professor Rhys Kesselman concurs. He also notes the problem of unwieldy size is magnified by monopolies. And governments have a monopoly on most of what they do — except when they overlap, which can create a host of new inefficiencies.

But competition doesn’t eliminate snafus, Kesselman added, and sometimes those who compare governments unfavourably to companies are glossing over a lot of warts.

“The business pages of your newspaper, over the course of a year, are filled with examples of businesses not being smart,” Kesselman said. “We find endless examples — especially when we have the benefit of looking at it in the rear-view mirror — of stupidity in the private sector.”

Of course, businesses that screw up badly go bankrupt. Governments don’t — and the citizens who elected them are left with the mess.

As well, except for those with a vested interest, people tend to quickly forget what dragged a company under. With governments, says Seth Klein, B.C. director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, we tend not only to remember, but also to exaggerate their failings.

Klein recalled that in 2012, around the time former International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda was being pilloried for high spending, his think-tank was working intensively with focus groups.

One odd thing they found was that, as time went on, the cost of the minister’s infamous orange juice — the focus of outrage for many voters — kept escalating in people’s minds.

“It cost $16,” he said. “That’s a lot. But it isn’t the hundreds of dollars some thought they remembered.” Saturday: Do we pay for what we get from our governments?

Businesses that screw up badly go bankrupt. Governments don’t—and the citizens who elected them are left with the mess.