There’s a city in Germany (or is there?) called Bielefeld and the conspiracy theory goes that it doesn’t exist. It’s such a well-known conspiracy, even Chancellor Merkel has referred to it in the past. It got to the point that the city offered a €1 million reward to anyone who could prove that it doesn’t exist.
B.C. Premier John Horgan seems to be thinking the same thing of 100 Mile House. This is not to say the BC NDP as a whole operated under this assumption. BC Health Minister Adrian Dix was here during the wildfires and Ravi Kahlon, parliamentary secretary for the Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, has been here a few times. However, thinking back to the wildfires, Horgan stopped in Williams Lake, where he’s stopped more than once in recent years, and later the Ashcroft Reserve.
He took a tour away from Victoria to visit resource communities in January.
If you wanted to have a conversation about the impact and state of the logging industry, 100 Mile House with two out of three mills closing (West Fraser’s Chasm mill and Norbord’s 100 Mile mill) seems like a logical option.
But once again, Horgan didn’t stop in 100 Mile House. Instead, he opted for places like Quesnel, Vanderhoof and Fraser Lake.
So to that effect, it’s probably important to clear up, just for Horgan’s benefit, that while it’s called “100 Mile House” there is in actuality more than one house. In fact, there’s an entire town.
On another note, local residents hopeful that with ride-hailing making it into the province, last the Free Press heard, there’d been no applications to either the District of 100 Mile House or the Cariboo Regional District.
Meanwhile elsewhere in the province, cab companies are seeking court injunctions and the City of Surrey spent some time handing out $500 fines to Uber drivers before signing on to a regional ridesharing licence.
While perhaps not shocking, the lack of ridesharing applications is thoroughly disappointing news. For one thing, with a large senior population having ride-hailing in the South Cariboo would undoubtedly give some seniors a bit of independence back. For another, it would offer a safe way to get home after going out for a few drinks, potentially boosting business for local restaurants and bars.