Open letter to Premier Ford
Good day Premier Ford
I received my licence plate renewal reimbursement cheque a few days ago. It’s always great to acquire unexpected funds, but this cheque got me thinking about the bigger picture.
I remembered back to the day I renewed my licence plate. It was December 2020, really cold and we (me and about 12 other drivers) were lined up outside the Service Ontario Centre and even around the corner of the building, so we could properly social distance. There was wonderful camaraderie in the lineup, as we all joked about the weather and tried to stay warm – so Canadian!
My recent thinking, however, did not leave me so jovial and here’s why.
I imagined this centre would service a driver every six minutes or so. This means at this centre alone, in eight hrs approximately 80 people might have been served. If on average each of these drivers paid $330 for two years and one sticker (some drivers may have more than one plate) then this Service Centre would approximately earn about $26,000/day. Wow! If our Service Ontario Centre is one of 289 Centres, then in one day in Ontario, this fee might generate approximately $7,629,600. It seems to me this fee, that drivers are used to paying and all of us had already paid, could be put to good use for our hospitals, schools, and other Provincial responsibilities.
As well, I checked Ontario’s Debt Clock this morning, by the time you read my letter it will be spinning past $467,000,000,000!
Returning the licencing fees will add to this debt, not reduce it, a debt our grandchildren will have to pay off. I don’t want my grandchildren paying for the privilege of me driving a car. It doesn’t make sense to further add an enormous debt to the many issues the next generation will have to deal with.
On top of all this, how much did it cost to reimburse hundreds of thousands of drivers! All happy to pay our share of costs for the privilege of driving a car.
I realize there is an election around the corner and the current government wants people to like and vote for them, but this is backfiring! The people who really need the $330 are the people who can’t afford to own a car and likely never will. This refund encourages people to own cars, when what we need to do is break off our relationship with fossil fuels and provide accessible, reliable, frequent and clean public transportation that operates on renewal energy. This would demonstrate real leadership!
With Respect,
Karen Rathwell
Guelph
