City (Once Again) Targets Poor & Working Poor To Save Money

Ottawa bus fare hikes, service cuts proposed

Night and weekend bus service in Ottawa could be reduced and fares raised under a proposal aimed at keeping next year’s property tax hike under four per cent.

You can bet your last dollar that the people who came up with this plan, the members of the city’s audit, budget and finance committee who think it’s a good plan, and the members of city council who I expect will sanction the plan, won’t be the ones shelling out more money for bus tickets, and they certainly aren’t the ones who will have to worry about getting to or from work after the buses quit running.

The people who will be most affected are those who cannot afford a car, and insurance, and/or fuel, and/or maintenance, and/or what it costs to park a car for a work shift in this city.

It will be the people who are working a minimum wage job (or a second job) during the nights and evenings when bus service in this city (which is already crappy) will be cut.

In other words it will be, once again, the poor and the working poor who are hit.

Mr. Mayor and city council all drive nice cars and they have reserved parking spaces that I’d be really surprised they have to pay one thin dime for, or they have a service that picks them up and drops them off, or they can afford a taxi ride from where ever to where ever, when ever they need them — luxuries that the poor and the working poor cannot afford.

Another thing the poor and the working poor don’t have is the political clout to make life difficult for Mr. Mayor and city council, so, once again, that makes them prime targets to appease those who do.