A surprise announcement from Premier Gordon Campbell today.

Campbell told delegates at the union of BC municipalities convention tolls on the Coquihalla highway are coming off immediately.

"How many of you are intending to take the Coquihalla going home? How many of you are leaving this afternoon? Well I think you're gonna like this. By 1:00 this afternoon the tolls on the Coquihalla are going for good."

Campbell says tolls have nearly paid for the entire 848 million dollar cost of the Coquihalla, which first opened in 1986.

But Campbell also told delegate’s tolls on the new port Mann Bridge will be in place for 35 years once the crossing is completed.

What pisses me off about this is that I drove over the Coquihalla around noon today and had to pay the toll - so I guess that I could say that I was one of the last ones to have paid the toll. I have my receipt and just might send it in to see if they just might give me a refund.

The party in power regardless of political stripe always has the advantage when it comes to doling out the money before elections - fixed dates or no fixed dates.

I expect that we will see the following between now and the May '09 BC election.

A gradual increase in the minimum wage towards $10.00 and a gradual decrease or elimination in our health care premiums.

By removing the tolls the trucking industry will probably tone down there objections to the carbon tax as those companies who use the Coq will probably come out ahead.

Here's a little more from the BC government press release

quote:

---

“Removing the tolls will mean literally hundreds of dollars annually in the pockets of British Columbians who regularly use the highway,” said Premier Campbell. “It will also mean thousands of dollars in annual saving for truckers who account for 20 per cent of highway traffic along the corridor but pay more than half of the total toll revenue.”

---

[ 27 September 2008: Message edited by: Politics101 ]

The NDP had 10 years to remove the tolls and didn't.

The tolls have never really bothered me - I liked the idea of a faster, well maintained route to the Interior - I save up to 2 hours when traveling through to Banff in the summer - the toll charge was worth the time saving to me.

[ 26 September 2008: Message edited by: Politics101 ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Politics101:
The NDP had 10 years to remove the tolls and didn't.

---

And how short peoples memories are.

Remember this after it was announced it was paid for?

quote:

---

BILL M 202 -- 2003
COQUIHALLA HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION CLARITY ACT, 2003
Preamble

Whereas the people living in the interior of British Columbia expect that they be treated equitably when it comes to transportation infrastructure;

Whereas the government has initiated a process to sell the future Coquihalla toll revenue stream over the next 55 years, ensuring continued tolling on the Coquihalla Highway many years beyond the promised term of the toll;

Whereas the government has already imposed an increase in the gas tax to fund highway infrastructure;

Whereas the people of British Columbia do not believe that government owned assets should be sold off to pay for this government's record deficits and failed economic policies;

THEREFORE HER MAJESTY, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of British Columbia, enacts as follows:

1 Section 45, Ministry of Transportation and Highways Act [RSBC 1996] Chapter 311 is repealed and replaced with the following:

45 (1) The government may establish a system of tolls to be paid in respect of the use of vehicles on the highway.

(2) The future revenues generated under subsection (1) cannot be leased, contracted out, sold or auctioned off or otherwise granted to an entity other than the provincial government.

---

http://142.36.155.4/37th4th/1st_read/m202-1.htm

Public outrage stopped it.

quote:

---

The tolls have never really bothered me - I liked the idea of a faster, well maintained route to the Interior - I save up to 2 hours when traveling through to Banff in the summer - the toll charge was worth the time saving to me.

---

I too found it faster and did not mind paying the toll until the highway was paid for. But have deeply resented it since it was paid for about 5 years ago, and it was a strictly money making activity.

A truckers association was interviewed last evening on Global and it ssaid that it would mean savings of about 30 million to truckers and trucking firms.

[ 27 September 2008: Message edited by: jas ]

quote:

---

That is because it was not paid for until 2002-2003 or there abouts

---

It was paid or written off the books in 2000 - so the NDP could still have done it before they left office and there was nothing stopping them from doing it before it was officially paid off but since most of those seats weren't likely to vote NDP there wasn't much political need to do that.

Campbell's announcement yesterday was nothing more than a cheap smokescreen to try and deflect attention from the fact that he and his arrogant government are taking it... on the chin (I bet some people thought I was going to reference an orafice or something) over the bullshit gas tax, the increase to his deputies, as well as the fact that dropping the tolls does nothing to open more hospital beds or address the acute care crisis that exists in BC. He needed something to give him some breathing room from getting constantly attacked.

Its nothing more than cheap politics. And an attempt to snow the general voting public. Based on what happened in 2001 to 2005 and the results of that election in 2005, it'll probably work. If you think that the rates for trucking goods to and from the market are going to drop as a result of the tolls.. think again. Trucking made up over 60 percent of the revenue of the tolls on the Coquihalla, yet only 20% of commercial vehicles used the thing. Can everyone now see what a cash cow the new toll bridges are going to be??? And yet that money, rather than going to maintenance and upkeep, will be going into the contractors pocket for 35 yrs.

quote:

---

the Golden Ears Bridge is finished in the spring of 2009

---

Nice try - Kegler - the new Golden Ears bridge has nothing to do with the provincial government - it is an initiative of Metro Vancouver and Translink - that is you and me regional taxpayer - whether we pay a toll to use it when other route options are available free of charge or whether we force everyone in Metro Vancouver to pay for in their taxes or rent whether they use it or not could be debated in a different thread.

If you don't want tolls on that bridge then throw out all the mayors and replace them with ones who are willing to raise property and gas taxes for everyone

I doubt Remind and others living outside the region want to pay for a bridge primary serving two lower mainland communities with their tax dollars.

quote:

---

the fact that dropping the tolls does nothing to open more hospital beds

---

You absolutely right but didn't the NDP government promise a new hospital to replace MSA in Abbotsford - can you supply me with a link where the NDP awarded a contract for its construction.

Of course you can't because the NDP never built what they promised.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Politics101:
The Liberals just opened the new Abbotsford Regional and Cancer clinic hospital after promising to build it - yes it might be a P3 but the fact remains that the people of the region have a new hospital and probably couldn't care less how it is financed as they are getting treated in the emergency.

---

Abbotsford did not need a cancer clinic and they got it at the expense of northern BC. It was promised to PG, so people from the north would not have to travel to the coast to get treatment.

I am sure that the 100,000+ people in the Abbotsford, Mission and Chilliwack region will be happy to hear that those in the north don't think a cancer clinic is necessary there.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Politics101:
Remind - I believe that a cancer clinic for Prince George was just recently announced.

---

quote:

---

I am sure that the 100,000+ people in the Abbotsford, Mission and Chilliwack region will be happy to hear that those in the north don't think a cancer clinic is necessary there.

---

quote:

---

And can you tell me why the NDP who at one time had both there finance and education ministers from the Prince George region never built one.

---

1) I've never heard the term 'golden triangle' - is it another term for the Lower Mainland?

The "heartland" of the province is the Vancouver Island/Sunshine Coast/GVRD area, in the southwestern corner, while the "hinterland", the rest of the province, provides wealth from the extraction of resources such as forestry, mining and oil and gas drilling.

quote:

---

Originally posted by DrConway:
Yeah. The timing of this is more than a little suspicious. Even the NDP never went for this kind of short-term trick.

---

quote:

---

...the NDP had lied about the 1996 budget. Mr. Clark had won a come-from-behind victory over Mr. Campbell buttressed by his promise that the province's budget was in the black. It was actually in a deficit, a fact well known to Finance Ministry bureaucrats, at the very least..."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ghoris:
A couple quick questions:

1) I've never heard the term 'golden triangle' - is it another term for the Lower Mainland?

2) What is the 'main part of BC's income' that is derived 'mainly from the north'? Mining? Forestry?

---

1. Golden triangle is Vitoria, Nanaimo, and the GVRD and burb cities

quote:

---

Originally posted by scooter:

Mr. Clark, meet Mr. Vander Zalm

---

Liberal Lies Are just that: Liberal Lies

quote:

---

No ‘fudge’

This wasn’t “fudge-it budgeting.” British Columbia’s economy was firing on all cylinders. The public debt had been reduced, the budget was balanced, and the treasury filled to overflowing.

One might think that the newly-elected Campbell government had found itself in an enviable fiscal position. But the positive picture painted by the third briefing binder presented a political dilemma of sorts. After all, the B.C. Liberals’ election victory in part rested on their often repeated assertion that the New Democrats’ final budget was in deficit and, like a previous NDP budget, “fudged.” The briefing binders clearly showed those allegations to be untrue, a revelation that might prove embarrassing for the new government.

Yet, the B.C. Liberals’ election platform had promised to "deliver real transparent, accountable government." With pledges such as these, surely the new premier had no choice but to accurately disclose the binders' contents to the public. Or did he?

Two days after the transition ceremony when the binders were handed over, Gordon Campbell met a scrum of press gallery reporters at Victoria's Empress Hotel. There, where the 77-member B.C. Liberal caucus was holding its first post-election meeting, Gordon Campbell gave his answer. "Some of the problems that we face are as we thought and some are worse than we thought," he said, "The finances of the province are worse than we anticipated." He added, "The magnitude of the losses we may face compared to budget is still up in the air."

Banner headlines in the following day’s daily newspapers fairly screamed that the defeated New Democrats had left behind a fiscal mess for the new government. "B.C. Finances Worse Than Thought, Campbell Says," blared The Vancouver Sun.

Five weeks later, without fanfare, B.C.’s public accounts for fiscal 2001-02 were released by the comptroller general and auditor general. They confirmed record-shattering surpluses in the consolidated revenue fund and the summary accounts. So great was the fiscal windfall that British Columbia was able to make what was then the largest-ever reduction to the public debt.

---

quote:

---

Five weeks later, without fanfare, B.C.’s public accounts for fiscal 2001-02 were released by the comptroller general and auditor general. They confirmed record-shattering surpluses in the consolidated revenue fund and the summary accounts. So great was the fiscal windfall that British Columbia was able to make what was then the largest-ever reduction to the public debt.

---