I SEE WHY THEY CALLED IT A STING
So there was this news story a while back. It caught my attention as the top news item of the day on my newsfeed. The article was about bus pass forgery and explained that:
A six-month sting operation resulted in the arrest of two suspects and the seizure of ... several dozen pre-made passes ready for sale. Transit Police estimate the loss of revenue at more than $200,000. Police allege the passes were being made to order in the buyer’s name, mostly in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
At the time it struck me as a strange story. The numbers didn’t really make much sense and the piece seemed to be missing a lot of information, key information required to make it a respectable piece of news. If nothing else, after having conducted an exhaustive six-month investigation, you’d think they’d have something interesting to say about the people involved, those making and buying these passes, why they did it, or really any context at all. Instead, there was none of this. As is so often the case, the public was left to figure out for themselves what was really going on.
So, to that end, I went back and dug up the article and did my own research. I read that these bus passes were “counterfeit Ministry of Social Services and Housing transit passes”. I found that these passes are only for the elderly, for 60 to 64 year-olds on income assistance, or for 18 to 64 year-olds on income assistance due to disability. So is this who we’re talking about? I’d assume these counterfeit users would have to look the part. They’d have to appear to be 60+ or disabled to get past the bus driver or the regular security shakedowns that happen on transit in this and other poor neighbourhoods, right? Well, we’re not told. Without any other information it seems to me like we’re talking about elderly folks and the disabled. At the very least I think we can assume we are talking about people on a tight budget, desperate to save $2 a day, who aspire to ride the bus and are willing to break the law for such a luxury. The author of the CBC report only notes buyers “mostly in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside” and we are left to assume everything else. If this is the case, on its surface this feels more like an attack on the disadvantaged and less like something requiring a major sting operation and worthy of a front page news report. But I thought about it a little further and did some math.
The passes in question cost $45 annually. This compares to a concession fee of $52 per month, or $624 per year. Regular rates for one zone adult passes are $91 per month ($1,092 per year) and three zone passes cost $170 per month ($2,040 per year.) So, with these figures to play with, how do we get to the $200,000 in lost revenue that transit police allege and the CBC reports? The article only mentions seizure of “several dozen” of these counterfeit passes. (What is several dozen, and why don’t they just give us the actual number? I’ll assume it’s more than 24 but probably less than 60.) So do the math with these numbers then.
They can’t be talking about the value of the transit passes these counterfeits replace. (Which is what I assumed they meant.) At $45 a piece you’d need several thousand, not dozens, to reach $200,000. Even at the extreme, the maximum three zone rate of $170 per month, you still don’t get anywhere close. So what’s going on? Has the counterfeiting operation been in place for many years and manufactured thousands of passes? The article doesn’t say.
Regardless, you’ll notice that whatever math they’re doing it requires that we assume these counterfeit users would take the bus, and pay the full monthly pass rate, if they didn’t have access to these counterfeit passes. I think it’s safe to say they still have all their work ahead of them if they’re going to convince people of this premise. Of course there may be many other possible routes to their $200,000 figure; but those would require information, it seems, the police did not volunteer and the CBC chose not to obtain.
Let’s give the police and the CBC the benefit of the doubt. Where does that get us? Well, as a little thought experiment, let’s pretend these criminals using counterfeit cards are all actually able-bodied twenty-somethings. Let us also pretend they have full-time minimum wage jobs ($8 per hour when this investigation was underway.) This means they’re making around $16,000 annually, or $14,960 after taxes. We’ll also pretend these evildoers have some of the cheapest rent in the city and spend only $9,700 per year sheltering themselves. (Please notice this expense alone drains 64% of their income. And also understand that if their rent was even half this already small number that amount would still exceed the 30% threshold that marks “affordable housing” and Canada’s poverty line, as defined by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation.)
For the sake of this argument we’ll also assume these deviants have no children, or other dependants, and live on their own. We’ll say they spend $1,000 annually on utilities and another $800 for phone and internet – the lowest rates and poorest quality service available. Now let’s pretend they eat, but not a lot as they have a job at a restaurant and get a free meal every day they work. Needing to keep to a budget, we’ll also pretend they avoid alcohol entirely and never buy any $3 lattes. Doing so they’re able to feed themselves on just $6 a day – meaning sustenance requires only $2,200 a year. Let’s say they maintain adequate personal hygiene and wear only second-hand clothes. This adds only $1,000 to their annual expenses, for a total of $14,700. So, covering their basic necessities alone, you’ll notice these ingrates have already spent almost everything they make at their mindless, somewhat degrading, but honest job.
Luckily for these theoretical humans they’re in perfect health and have no medical or dental expenses of any kind. They take no vitamins, supplements, or tinctures, and they use no recreational drugs. They don’t wear glasses or contact lenses either. They cut their own hair, but if they want it done professionally they know someone who will do it in exchange for yard work. They never have to paint, repair, or replace anything in their perfect apartment. And because there are never any fires, floods, or thefts they opt out of paying renter’s insurance. They also have no plants, no art on their walls, and all the furniture and appliances they have came free from the alley behind their building. They do not own any books, digital or analog, and purchase no LPs or MP3s. They own no instruments and no tools. They send no mail and buy nothing over the internet. They don’t go to movies or museums or catch any theatre or opera, and they never take in any music of any kind. They have no subscriptions and have never had a desire to own a television. They don’t play video games or buy apps for their phone. While they do own a computer it never breaks down, they never need to buy any upgrades, and happily rely entirely on free software. They have no hobbies, don’t go to the gym, take no classes or lessons, and have no tuition to pay. They don’t use Zipcar or Car2Go, are not car co-op members, and they never rent any vehicles. (They did have a bike, but it was stolen.) They have no friends or family and don’t have any pets; and therefore spend nothing on gifts. Because they simply can’t afford to take any time off, and have no money to go anywhere even if they wanted to, they take no vacations of any kind. Similarly, due to the math problem they find themselves in, they give nothing to charity, make no RRSP contributions, invest nothing, and put nothing away for a rainy day – they don’t even buy lottery tickets.
By the standards of most Canadians these folks live a diminished and unpleasant existence and, we might assume, have a rather bleak future. It’s difficult to argue, in any real sense, that the fictional existence described above is better (materially, socially, or spiritually) than that of someone in prison. And if you’re willing to admit this then also please realize that the above is also an impossibility, a utopic financial situation that many Canadians will never achieve. Why? Well, because many of the most ubiquitous, heavily populated, and profitable businesses in the land (banks, gas companies, clothing chains, bookstores, coffee franchises, big-box outlets, and others), tend to pay their employees (some of whom are highly skilled and highly educated) only minimum wage or slightly better, and even then seldom offer their staff reliable full-time work. And at this lowest pay rate, even working two jobs (at 60 hours per week, say) seldom makes much difference financially while being additionally burdensome in numerous ways. So it’s obvious that even these folks are still, by any generous calculation, at a level barely above life-support, with little or no wiggle-room.
Now, within the idealistic financial context I just spelled out, talk to me about transportation. As noted earlier, if these “criminals” never wish to leave their own neighbourhood they can expect to pay $1,092 on single zone bus passes for the year. A much more realistic three zone pass comes to $2,040. And yet, you’ll note, this expense is eight times what they have left to spend, even if they pinch every nickle and dime that comes their way. ($14,960 - $14,700 = $260) Let that sink in for a second.
If they have nothing... and do nothing... a full-time job doesn’t provide them with enough money to get to work on public transit. In fact, this sad sum they have left over after the most paltry essentials would barely cover the cost of an alternate form of transportation. They could hardly afford a used bike or a new skateboard or pair of rollerblades in this city. And no doubt you’d insist they buy a helmet, lights, reflectors, and a bell too (another $200 they simply do not have) or otherwise be breaking the law and asking for a confrontation with the police and a fine – something else they cannot afford... (This is what is meant by the “criminalization of poverty”.)
Still, these folks have to get to work every day, lest they join an even lower and still further denigrated class: the unemployed. So what do you propose they do?
From where I sit, even charging these people (the new middle class), or anyone even close to this income bracket, just $200 per year for a bus pass – nevermind the going rate of $2,000 – feels a little cruel and unusual and paints our society as one residing on morally questionable grounds. No? This, to me, seems quite plain to see. Are we not already funding public transit? Do we not have busses and skytrain cars roaming the city nearly empty of passengers, or entirely so? Yet we demand that even the working poor pay far beyond their means (800% of their “disposable” income) just to occupy a space in a vehicle that will mockingly travel to their very destination with or without them? How vulgar have we become? What sickly form of conspicuous consumption are we sustaining and, moreover, why? Maybe we’re aspiring to emulate to worst of Victorian England? Failing to provide people who cannot afford to take the bus, or any other form of transportation – a large and growing swathe of our society (the very folks we all rely on every single day) – a pass they can afford seems, at best, irresponsible.
And if we have a problem with this, doing something like this for them, we should want to provide bus passes to these folks just for ourselves then. For our own dignity, as a tiny offset for our small personal contribution to a social system that insists upon so bizarrely degrading its least fortunate members. For this is most certainly the real crime that needs addressing and is the one that history will remember.
No?
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