No government initiative or project will get universal support from the public. But my experience is that, generally, people will accept government initiatives so long as they feel that there is value being returned for the taxdollars’ being invested even if they personally may not benefit from it.
Understandably, what frustrates and sometimes angers people is when thousands and sometimes millions of dollars are spent in programs that are clearly a poor use of scarce taxdollars. The most recent provincial example of this is the NDP government’s decision to spend $14 million to create Enhanced ID Cards and Enhanced Drivers Licenses.
So far, only 8,000 Manitobans have signed up for the card despite an aggressive advertising effort by the NDP government to try to increase demand for them. That means that the cost of the cards to Manitoba taxpayers has been $1,750 for each card ordered. The intent of the Enhanced ID and Enhanced Drivers License cards was to give people an alternative to getting a passport because while the enhanced cards are not acceptable as identification for flying into the United States, they are allowed as identification for entering the United States by land.
The problem is that it appears no research was done by the NDP government before spending $14 million on the program. It was only after the program was launched that a survey was done and then it found that the majority of Manitobans had no interest in the cards. This past summer, another survey showed that instead of interest growing after a public advertisement campaign, interest was dropping. Fully 75% of survey respondents this summer indicated they were not interested in the Enhanced ID and Enhanced Drivers option.
The $14 million of taxpayer dollars that the NDP government has spent on this program that few Manitobans wanted is money that is not going to be recovered. It is money that could have been saved had the NDP simply asked Manitobans before they started the program whether they were in fact interested in the cards. While there is little reason for the NDP government to continue to pour good taxdollars after bad by stubbornly pushing ahead with the program into the future, that is exactly what they intend to do.
With every government program or initiative there are going to be some who question the expenditure. But the very least that people have the right to expect is that programs will deliver good value for money. Spending $1750.00 each on ID cards that were not in demand from the outset is not value for money.
