Mr. Speaker, I will go through some of the points that need to be brought out in this debate. It is not a very happy task to bring the bad news to situations where on the face of it at least this appears to be a good idea. Who would disagree with the overall concept of trying to encourage the use of transit? Certainly, the government would not and no member in the House would. However, our basic position on the bill is, however well intentioned it might be, that it is a very costly initiative for a dubious benefit.
Hon. members know that the Government of Canada is quite fiscally prudent. They have only learned that recently, but they know that we are in fact quite prudent with the moneys that taxpayers entrust to us. We are glad to know that it has been a recent enlightenment on the part of the NDP.
The bill is of dubious effectiveness and it is not quite as fair as it might otherwise seem to be. The overall thrust of the bill is the desire to create more transit users. As I said earlier, there is no person in the House who does not agree with that intention. However, we also have to weigh costs against that encouragement and there is no clear evidence that it will generate the desired increases in public transit. So, costs need to be weighed against other considerations such as accessibility, convenience, comfort and personal preference.
Therefore, it comes as no surprise to anyone that study after study shows that the use of public transit is relatively insensitive to the cost for users. That is econo-speak. Transit users use transit for reasons other than cost, for reasons such as convenience and for reasons that are personal unto themselves. In this instance we are looking for tax relief for the cost of using public transit. The studies show that this will create a relatively speaking small increase in ridership and members may say that even three more riders is good. Well, three more riders at what cost?
In this situation this would be accompanied by a very hefty price tag. Let us say for instance that the ridership was increased by 10%. That would cost the government in the order of about $240 million upwards in the range of possibly as much as $300 million, with 90% of the relief going to the people who are already using the transit system. Here we are paying out 90%, somewhere between $240 million and $300 million to people who are already using transit. That is a very expensive 10% increase in the ridership of a transit system.
In addition to questioning the effectiveness, I would also have to question the fairness of the bill. There is no doubt that most transit systems are in urban centres and urban centres would be the overwhelmingly large beneficiaries of this initiative as opposed to rural or other centres. As well, those who use other environmentally friendly means of getting from point A to point B would also be potentially disadvantaged.