Bike Tax Credit Petition Presented To Parliament
MP Olivia ChowPhotograph by
Earlier this year, Momentum reported on the efforts of Chris Tomasini and others asking Canadians to sign a petition requesting tax credits for cyclists, similar to the credits provided by the federal government to public transit users. The petition seemed well-timed, as the government’s environmental policies were rated extremely low in Canadian polls, and they were even being criticized by other countries.
In June, Member of Parliament Olivia Chow stood and presented the petition with about 3,000 signatures to the House. At press time, there had been no indication that the government was considering credits for cyclists.
Tomasini was asked for his views on the effectiveness of his efforts and petitions in general. He also had some strong opinions on how cycling activists could be more successful.
“One single petition which isn’t followed up by others is probably useless. If you go into the House of Commons debates page and type in ‘cycling’ you’ll get a couple of hits I think. But if you type in ‘gay marriage’ you’ll get hundreds of hits from all these very conservative people asking the government to outlaw gay marriage again.
“So to begin with you need petition after petition. To be really effective, cyclists probably need to operate like the agribusiness and pharmaceutical conglomerates and pay millions of dollars to lobby groups to actually grease the palms of the party insiders who dream up public policy. I think the backrooms are where action takes place, not on the floor of the House.
“Regarding the effectiveness of petitions in general, I don’t have super high hopes. Parliament is under no obligation to do anything about what they hear in a petition, which makes sense, because they could get lots of dumb petitions.
“Petitions have two big benefits. First, they raise public awareness. When we were emailing people across the country asking them to sign, we were driving people with a lukewarm interest in cycling to a document which laid out pretty clearly why cycling is so important, and getting these lukewarm people more interested in cycling issues. Second, at least to some extent, they make the MPs realize that this is something which is important to Canadians, and they’ll hopefully throw us a bone or two when they’re devising new policies.
“I was glad to get that petition done and read, and it was worthwhile to do. But to actually cause change, there needs to be some sort of campaign. One person writing a letter to his or her MP or MPP is great, but that person working with a group to gets hundreds of people to write these letters is better.”
Tomasini described a presentation that he saw about how lobby groups should work to steer public policies. “At one point it mentions special interest groups working together. I think this is something which cycling groups in Canada should do which they don’t really do. If we had a national cycling lobby driving letter writing campaigns and petitions, I think we’d make a lot more progress.
“I’m not optimistic about how strong of a voice cyclists currently have in Canada. Look how hard it is to get bike lanes built in Toronto even though all the money for them has already been set aside. But I am optimistic about the “perfect storm” which seems to be brewing against the automobile, and therefore in favour of bikes and public transit I mean: with peak oil; global warming; soaring diabetes, obesity and chronic heart disease rates; urban gridlock, and suburban sprawl – how can governments not eventually push alternative transport over the automobile?”
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