After returning from a weekend in Seattle, this page has started to notice a few vehicles around my neighbourhood with ICBC's new Olympic commemorative license plates. If local motorists aren't already beaming with pride (or driven to distraction) by all the Canucks car flags these days, the new plates will also let them bask in someone else's reflected glory.
It's too bad the plates have to include the arrogant and insipid slogan, "The Best Place on Earth" (tm) . Sensible people would think that the best place on earth wouldn't have armies of homeless people, backed up emergency rooms, abysmal public transit, toxic fish farms and forests of raw logs being shipped elsewhere, but Gordon Campbell and the BC Lieberals aren't sensible people. This page did notice that some license plate frames will cover "The Best Place on Earth", so check with your local auto supply store.
What's worse is that the all the money raised for the Olympic license plates will go to the Olympics. While the 2010 sinkhole can use all the money it can get, bear in mind that fees for regular license plates go to ICBC's driver training and traffic safety programs. Gordon Campbell can claim that the new plates isn't another public subsidy for the Olympics, but if everybody wants a 2010 Olympics/Best Place on Earth license plate, who picks up the shortfall for ICBC to fund its core mandates?
The regular license plates read "Beautiful British Columbia", which gives the impression that this is a nice place to visit, or for us lucky few, reside. The new plates give the impression that a two-week sporting event has turned us into a bunch of pricks. If you're driving with the new plates in Washington, Alberta, or anywhere else outside the reach of our government's propaganda machine, consider yourself warned.
2 comments:
What I've never quite understood is why, given that they are the ones making all the money off the thing, that the MultiNats aren't forced, contractually, to pay for everthing, and I mean everything associated with the Olympics - including the so-called legacy projects.
Sheesh.
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I live in the Okanagan (Westside City) and the pic on these plates is more reminiscent of a frozen wasteland like Antartica, it certainly doesn't portray most of British Columbia.
I agree that the slogan "The Best Place on Earth" is plainly stupid arrogance. I would expect some cars with these plates to get vandalized outside of this province.
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