Monday, March 31, 2014

This Day In Snookland...Highways? We Don't Need No Stinking Highways!

EvenFlyin'PhilRodeAFerry
OnceInAWhileVille


Would'a thunk it....

A Snooklandian Minister, with TeeVee-ready hair no less, taken down by the linear print media.

And, surprise of all surprises, it was Mike Smythe who actually used the Google (and/or took a phone call from somebody from the other side) to do it:

...“Minister, many ferry users insist the ferries are an extension of the highway system,” CKNW’s Bill Good said to (Transportation Minister Todd) Stone in an interview.

“Do you reject that argument?”

Stone’s response: “Yes, I reject that argument and so has every B.C. government for a good number of decades now, including ours, the previous NDP government and Social Credit governments before that.”...

{snippety doo-dah}

...Contrary to what Stone says, every B.C. government going back to W.A.C. Bennett — the founder of the ferry system — considered the ferries to be an extension of the highways and said so many times.

That includes former Liberal premier Gordon Campbell.

“B.C. Ferries routes are an extension of the highway system and ferry travellers have the right to access those routes as they need to,” Campbell said...


****

Gosh.

Maybe it's time for Minister Stone to call up the TeeVee man and offer him a plane ride to Bella Coola.

Or some such thing.



________
And just who is wearing the blurry-logoed bit of BCF schwag at the top of the post?.....Stay tuned (and/or start guessing in the comments)....



.

7 comments:

North Van's Grumps said...

Tempted to do a Tally on how many British Columbia highways have low ridership.... like say beautiful, remote, but one of only TWO ways to access the Northern British Columbia: Route 37 Steward/Cassiar. How much traffic? Embedded Road Counters tell the story! Rupert eastward, rarely goes over 600 in January (2013). Stats are only give, up north, for the month of January!

Anonymous said...

SH:

It wouldn't be self-promoter and media darling extraordinaire: Christy would it?

She loves her a little irony: chastising BC Ferries for their spending on advertising to British Columbians y'all... and, she enjoys herself a cute little costume don't she?

btw: it's not like there aren't a lot of costs associated with highway travel is there?

It's Lotusland! where it never snows, our roads and bridges remain sparkly and pristine, and bad things like mva's never happen, right?

We mustn't trouble our little minds with nuisances like: emergency rescue response, policing, traffic helicopters, avalanche control, construction and maintenance...

http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/02/14/BC-Ferries-Ads/
(and good news spending too!)

BC's best promoter at work:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/clark-gets-ready-for-sun-run-sunday/article11436359/

Norm Farrell said...

I'd say from the picture, that its a man, walking the streets of Victoria, near the Legislature.

scotty on denman said...

No, the Minister's not a rockin' head---taken at his homework it's more like rocks IN his head---and no, it's TODD STONE, not a "tad stoned"---but, hey, maybe he WASN'T there during the sixties when that grinning scourge of the "socialist hordes" nationalized the ferries, encouraging economic development by way of inviting citizens to invest in homes and businesses, and linking up farms, sawmills, furniture factories and such to the provincial transportation network. Worked pretty well: remember those bond burnings W.A.C. relished so much as the ferry system did all that stuff while--- at the very same time--- paying itself off? Remember, Todd?...Todd...? Todd?...Oh, never mind! He's too bent out of shape on Christy's Whopper Juice, stuff she was peddling during the last election: take a sip and it's millions of dollars worth of LNG; take another sip, it's tens of millions; another and it's hundreds--- chuggin' all the way up to--hic!--TRILLIONS!!

Saw Todd down in Vic couple weeks ago. Man, was he EVER wasted!---babbling something about how he couldn't keep asking BC taxpayers to "bail out" the ferries---just a reekin' of Whopper Juice, totally oblivious to a couple thousand ferry users who'd done just about everything they could to correct the Minister: it's actually ferry-linked communities who the Minister's shaking down to help bail out his BC Liberal government. But I think he was too baked to comprehend that his government's dys-management will eventually swamp every British Columbian, not just ferry riders.

Todd! You need an intervention!

Anonymous said...

If Todd Stone and the government think that the ferry system isn't part of the highway system, then there better be a movement underway to move our provincial capital to the mainland.....Ft Nelson would be a good place for our politicians to park their asses for the month that they work each year....

istvan said...

Very good points anon 543 . Vanisle could would be free of cristy and the bclibs.

e.a.f. said...

Perhaps Vancouver Island should consider becoming its own province. Maybe some of the other coastal areas should look into it also. Its not like we are getting anything out of the provincial government, to whom we are paying a lot of taxes.