**Sun: BIG WHEELS AT PARK GET PRICY NEW CARS
Ryan Lanyon
[ Article crossposted from flora.afo ]
[ Author was Russell McOrmond ]
[ Posted on 13 Dec 1997 12:54:34 -0500 ]
----- Forwarded message from Eric Jackson -----
From: "Eric Jackson" <ejac...@interlog.com>
To: <c4lde...@netserver.web.net>
Subject: C4LDEMOC-L: **Sun: BIG WHEELS AT PARK GET PRICY NEW CARS
Date: Fri, 12 Dec 1997 12:26:45 -0500
<Picture: Toronto Sun: Top Stories>
December 12, 1997
BIG WHEELS AT PARK GET PRICY NEW CARS
By JEFF HARDER -- Queen's Park Bureau
Premier Mike Harris and Speaker Chris Stockwell will be riding in style
this Christmas.
Thanks to Ontario taxpayers, both of the men just took delivery of new
government-issue vehicles that sell for more than $40,000 a pop.
The premier is chauffeured in a four-wheel-drive Chevrolet Suburban,
priced between $42,000 and $54,000, while Stockwell motors in a
top-of-the-line Buick Park Avenue, at about $41,000.
Stockwell said he had to replace the three-year-old Buick Roadmaster that
came with the speaker's office because of traction woes.
"It was rear-wheel drive and kept getting stuck in the snow," said
Stockwell, MPP for Etobicoke West. "I couldn't get around so I told
purchasing that I needed a new one."
The premier's OPP security unit ordered the leather-upholstered truck,
complete with trailer hitch, for the same reason. The bodyguards wanted
four-wheel drive to handle winter road conditions in the premier's hometown
of North Bay.
"They have gotten stuck from time to time - fortunately the premier wasn't
with them," Harris aide Bob Reid said yesterday. "These are practical
considerations. It is not motivated by a quest for luxury or grand style."
There are three vehicles attached to the premier's office. Two are
minivans. "These are not limousines," Reid said.
Former NDP premier Bob Rae travelled in a Mercury Grand Marquis. Rae's
former transportation minister, Gilles Pouliot, said Harris should do the
same.
"This is excessive when the average car sells for $28,000," Pouliot said.
"They are spending like drunken sailors except that drunken sailors spend
their own money."
----- End of forwarded message from Eric Jackson -----
--
Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.org/russell/work/>
Dec 10 is beginning of a year long commemoration of the 50th anniversary
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights http://www.unac.org/rights/
Can win but never lose? Fair game? http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/1227
My comments so far on MAI http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/1053
______________________________________________________________________________
Ryan Lanyon
DIS Urban Studies IV
CUSA Director of Student Affairs 1997-98
Apathy gives one no right to vent.