Government’s quotable quotes

Victoria employs a small army of public relations/communications people to tell us all that is good with government.

And, of course, they do not put any spin on releases … ever (ha, ha).

They are good though. It used to be that we weary journalists would get a press release from government and from that meagre offering, would track down comments from affected parties. We don’t have to do that anymore, the government PR hacks do it all for us.

Case in point, the recent rural economic strategy announcement last week.

The press release contained quotes from Premier Christy Clark, MLAs Donna Barnett, Shirley Bond, Mike Morris, Art Kaehn (Regional District Fraser-Fort George), Craig Pryor (Valemount Community Forest), Jennifer Applebaum (Valemount Learning Society), Kevin Clarkson (District of Mackenzie), and Trish Appleton, (Community Futures Fraser Fort George).

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with the government tracking down comments from affected parties. My only question is why, when the province announced it had reached a deal with the BCTF the news release didn’t contain a quote from BCTF president Glen Hansman.

Just askin’.

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