There are too many meetings.
There have not been enough meetings and opportunities for public input.
There are too many people at the meetings.
Not enough stakeholders have been invited to the meetings.
The politicians shouldn't be at the meetings.
Why aren't the politicians at the meetings? Don't they care?
When it comes to the Highway of Tears and missing and murdered aboriginal women, everything has become political. Before a word was said at Tuesday's meeting in Smithers, the meeting was generating stories about who was going to be there, who wasn't and what was the point of having a meeting at all.
Transportation Minister Todd Stone called the meeting but said he wouldn't attend. That's the first clue that nothing important, like spending money and/or announcing a new program, was going to happen. He also left the area MLA, the NDP's Jennifer Rice, off the invitation list. Her comments to the Canadian Press were soaked in sarcasm: "I understand the chief administrative officers (from communities) are invited because those are the practical people. Minister Stone is always talking about practical solutions, and I guess those are the practical people who implement practical things."
Prince George Mayor Lyn Hall didn't get an invite, either, even though Prince George, as the regional hub, is often the destination or the departure point for many area indigenous women without personal transportation.
Yet the politicians that were invited to take part didn't sound too thrilled about it.
"Sometimes it seems like we've just been put on a treadmill," Bill Miller of the Bulkley-Nechako Regional District told the Canadian Press. "We have some cost-effective and efficient solutions."
Miller's frustration is too many meetings, too much discussion and not enough action, particularly with viable proposals on the table to provide public transportation along the Highway 16 corridor for vulnerable individuals.
It's not like the provincial government hasn't consulted enough with area residents and First Nations before deciding how to proceed. There was Wally Oppal's 2012 commission in missing and murdered women, along with a recommendation from Oppal to make travel on Highway 16 safer. While he didn't recommend a free shuttle bus service in so many words, that's the logical outcome, both from a cost and an ease of implementation standpoint.
Northern Health already operates a bus service to connect area residents to health services in Prince George and Vancouver. Expanding that service to include non-health related travellers or a separate bus following a similar model is neither a huge challenge to organize nor a huge financial strain.
Yet here we are again. Another meeting, more consultation.
There is no need for the province to wait for the national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women promised by Justin Trudeau during the federal election campaign. Premier Christy Clark praised her Alberta counterpart Rachel Notley for introducing a carbon tax without waiting for the federal government to suggest it. Get out in front of the inquiry with a Highway of Tears transportation plan.
Everybody knows a shuttle bus service along Highway 16 won't stop vulnerable women from going missing and being murdered. Everybody also knows that free transportation will help reduce the number of women who die or disappear on the route. Measuring the effectiveness of the service will be difficult, if not impossible, because if there are fewer missing and murdered women, is that because of the bus or because of other factors? And what happens if the number goes up, not down?
The final analysis brings even more difficult questions and tough decisions. How much tax dollars are worth devoting to save one life? Where does the role of government end and the responsibility of communities and individuals start?
These questions can never be fully answered and they will continue to be debated at countless more public meetings in the future but that shouldn't stop the provincial government of today from taking some small action in an effort to prevent fewer tragedies in Northern B.C.
