Sunday, November 21, 2010

Campbell, I believe that's a live grenade up your ass

Mark Hume at the Globe and Mail takes Laila Yule's research out into the light. He gets some very strange answers on the shadow tolls on the Sea to Sky highway. In the end however:



Peter Milburn, deputy minister of Transportation, said “shadow toll” is not a term he would use. But he acknowledges the private consortium will get incentive payments of about $75-million over 25 years depending on safety performance targets and vehicle use.

So, it is a toll, but it’s invisible to the public, and the government doesn’t have to wear it because it can be described as something else. Talk about creative bookkeeping.
But you have to go back in the article for the best part ...
Tolls aren’t popular with the public in general, and tourism operators in Whistler didn’t fancy the idea of having a toll gate looming like a barrier between Vancouver and the ski hill.
Oh dear. That makes me very, very angry. I might swear.
This is the same bunch of fucking carpet baggers who have forced a three-fold increase in ferry fares throughout coastal British Columbia. And we're giving celebrity-hangout Whistler a free ride? I smell a buy off.

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