Bid to scrap Coquihalla toll tanks

By Steve MacNaull June 1 http://www.kelownadailycourier.ca/stories.php?id=46836

The B.C. Chamber of Commerce has shot down the Kelowna chamber‘s effort to get the toll taken off the Coquihalla Highway. “It‘s very disappointing, certainly,” says Weldon LeBlanc, the CEO of the 1,600-member Kelowna chamber. “The toll is basically an additional tax burden for people and business in the Okanagan, and we want to see it removed.” The local chamber brought its toll-scrapping resolution to the B.C. chamber‘s annual general meeting in Victoria. It probably wasn‘t the right year to bring it forward because the B.C. Chamber Policy Committee introduced a resolution that the provincial government consider more tolls as a way to raise money for highway development and maintenance. It passed, so the B.C. chamber is going to lobby government for more tolls, not less. “We knew going in that the policy committee had this resolution,” said LeBlanc, “but we still felt it was important to table our resolution because the toll on the Coquihalla Highway is discriminatory to this region.” Many Lower Mainland chambers like the idea of tolls to build more highways and bridges to help ease traffic congestion in and around Vancouver. While the Kelowna resolution to have the B.C. chamber lobby the province for the Coquihalla toll elimination received 55 per cent support at the AGM, it didn‘t pass because at least two-thirds is required. The Kelowna chamber voted against the B.C. chamber‘s toll expansion resolution, but the policy passed handily. The $10 toll for cars, $30 for transport trucks, located between Merritt and Hope on the Coquihalla is the only toll in the province. The only way for motorists to avoid the toll is to take another route, which stretches a Kelowna to Vancouver drive from about four hours to five and a half. The Coquihalla Highway toll was instituted by Socred premier Bill Bennett‘s government to pay for the fast-track construction of the Merritt-to-Hope section of the highway in time for Expo 86. The cost of the highway was covered by 2000, but neither the NDP government of the day, nor the current Liberals have made moves to remove the toll. Unsuccessful this time, the Kelowna chamber will continue to lobby for the elimination of the toll. The Kelowna chamber did have two other resolutions that passed – one advocating joint federal-provincial immigration offices and one for the creation of a provincial education strategy for technologists and technicians to help ease the labour shortage.