-by Peter Foster, Craven
April 13, 2023
Her and 32 others. Friends, family, photographers, security, hotel rooms, food, booze, and transportation all came to a grand total to the taxpayer of a little over 700 thousand dollars. The 35-dollar wreath she laid is part of that total.
Now I read yesterday that 24 Sussex Drive is full of rats, insert liberal joke here, broken pipes, leaky roofs, and in general is a health hazard for anyone to consider living there. Renovations to the crumbling old girl, insert gender joke here, which involve stripping the building down to the bare walls, replumbing and rewiring the structure, come to somewhere around 26 million dollars.
Now, could you possibly think of a better use for 700 thousand dollars other than sipping on 100$ glasses of orange juice and munching on foie gras at 30 thousand feet? Well, if you are unable to, I can! Now that is such an obscene waste of money it is not even funny.
Reading here this morning, the Calgary police have instituted a novel policy of clearly marking traffic enforcement vehicles with high visibility banners when they set up photo radar locations.
Initial results have been interesting, to say the least. A 68% decrease in traffic violations as a result of the clearly visible enforcement vehicles. However, now we have a situation where municipalities are suffering a lack of funding in their budgets because of the reduction of convictions. Yet, in almost the same breath, reassure the public that they were never used as cash cows!
One wonders as to the accuracy of that statement. Funny thing, I always thought that the inception of photo radar was, first and foremost, a safety issue never to be used as a retroactively punishing revenue producer.
To that statement, I can only reply. You B.S. your friends, and I will B.S. mine, but let us not bother B.Sing each other!
-Ideas and opinions expressed here are those of the author and not necessarilly those of LMT
