Snelgrove battles ‘idle’ chatter Lloyd Snelgrove climbed out of his Ford F150.
Peter Worden Wednesday August 27, 2008
Lloyd Snelgrove climbed out of his Ford F150.
Running late, a staffer briefed the Lloydminster-Vermilion MLA on a meeting he hadn’t planned to attend. Snelgrove answered his mobile, grabbed some files and headed into the legislature buildings. Ahead, someone with a security card dipped into the building and the minister hurried in behind to catch the open door.
His truck was left idling outside.
“I left it running,” said Snelgrove, admitting he was embarrassed for doing something he often harps his family over. “One time in eight years I absentmindedly walked away. I didn’t even hear it running.”
The understandable gaffe would certainly have run out of gas there had it not been for Snelgrove’s distinctive license plate: VLMLA. It caught the eye of Edmonton journalist Todd Babiuk whose popular blog harangued the local MLA, crying ‘fuel’ over the government’s wastefulness.
“Since we do pay car and fuel allowances to our elected members, it might be nice to get some value for our money,” Babiuk wrote on his blog. “Even if they don’t believe in climate change, they’re supposed to believe in tight fiscal management.”
Babiuk’s online column attracted replies from politically-sickened bloggers frustrated with the Conservatives’ apparent insouciance when it comes to spending; a portentous example of how Snelgrove is likely to spend billions of tax dollars as President of the Treasury Board.
“[The blog] managed to encapsulate exactly what is wrong with the Alberta government,” writes one post.
Snelgrove said this one slight shouldn’t sully his reputation for being a prudent politician.
“Being absentminded once in eight years by leaving my truck running I don’t think calls into question my commitment to being careful with taxpayers’ money. I think that’s a bit of a stretch,” he said.
Earlier this year a similar debate filled the Alberta legislature when a Liberal Party member questioned the $43,500 senior government officials are granted to buy a vehicle of their choice.
“Why not show real leadership and set fuel efficiency standards for these vehicles?” said the MLA.
Snelgrove’s Ford F150 is the same truck he owned before being elected.
“I never really felt the people of Alberta owed me a car any more than they owe me a house, you know?”
The local MLA’s mile-long mandate of official duties include among many other things Minister of Service Alberta, president of the Treasury Board, overseeing the oil sands’ long-term development and sitting on and chairing several committees. Snelgrove’s truck, he says, is an office-on-wheels traveling from his constituency to the capital and beyond. Each year he piles on about 60,000-plus clicks, and at 700 kilometers per tank, he says the truck doesn’t get the worst gas mileage.
“Most of the people on my street [in Vermilion] have very similar trucks,” he said, adding that his pickup is also appropriate for the terrain he covers. After a government swearing-in, Snelgrove, a father of four, was on his way home from Edmonton when he hit a snowdrift on Highway 16. His truck flipped.
“Nobody got hurt,” he said. “But if it was a little vehicle would we have been this lucky?”
Publisher: Shaun Jessome Proprietor and published by Sun Media Corporation - A Quebecor Media Company at 5714 - 44 Street, Lloydminster, Alberta, Canada T9V 0B6
