March
24, 2005
Revised
Plans or Broken Promises
On the
afternoon of Thursday, February 10, 2005, Blair Suffredine,
MLA for Nelson-Creston, rose in the Legislature and said:
"It
was with great pleasure that we were able to announce that
a fixed link across the Arrow Lakes at Needles will finally
become a reality. That's a 50-year-old broken promise from
a former government who backed away from it and said: "It's
too expensive. It can't be done." With the feasibility
study completed, we're finally in the process of making
this longstanding promise a reality."
"The
project to build a bridge over Arrow Lake has been put on
hold while the Transportation ministry looks for ways to
trim the price tag. The provincial government is blaming
the delay on rising construction costs, especially the price
of steel. It was announced a year ago that construction
would begin this spring on the $64 million bridge to replace
the Needles ferry south of Nakusp."
Suffredine,
who will be running against popular NDP candidate Corky
Evans, has a lot of explaining to do, but he is not
alone. The Campbell government has been spitting out more
announcements than most people can count, let alone follow
up to see if what's promised actually happens. One of the
first things it did after taking power on June 5, 2001,
was to implement a freeze on capital projects. Should Premier
Campbell be elected to govern for a second term, no one
should be surprised if recent announcements are reconsidered,
some of which (like support to communities
for oil and gas development or the promise for seismic
upgrading for schools) are for 15 years in the future,
as if the government of 2020 could be bound today's pre-election
commitments.
Consider
the promises Campbell broke, or "re-considered",
after the last election. He promised to honour contracts,
not to sell BC Rail, to adequately fund the Ministry of
Children and Family Development and to build 5,000 new long
term care beds. The full list of promises has disappeared
from the BC Liberal Party website, and it has not been replaced
with the Campbell platform for the May 17th election. That
is particularly ironic since Campbell and his candidates
have been successful in getting some media personalities
to pressure NDP Leader Carole James over the release of
the NDP campaign platform. With all of the resources of
government, much of which was used for partisan purposes
in television ads, with millions in donations from corporations
and with the benefit of a fixed election date, the Campbell
Liberals have been silent on when they will release a platform.
Whenever that happens Suffredine and the folks in Nelson-Creston
shouldn't hold their breath expecting to see how the problem
involving the price of steel can be overcome for the RAV
line, for other 2010 Olympic projects and for the Kelowna
bridge, but not for the Arrow Lake bridge.
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