It has been a busy time for the Town of Golden Council recently as the road rescue situation has finally been resolved.
The Provincial Government and the Town of Golden Council finally came to terms on what is being called a Road Rescue Financial Analysis Project.
Since May, the road rescue issue has been up in the air over a gap of funding.
For months provincial representatives have taken their time to come up with a reasonable answer on the best way to proceed after the Golden and District Search and Rescue stepped down from providing the service.
During this time, debates and discussion were held while the obvious answer to solve all of the issues was apparent right from the start.
There was no other way for this debate to end.
The province needed to have road rescue on a dangerous highway where many accidents happen, and the only group in the area which could take on the responsibility was the local fire department (who have been serving the area since May).
So what was the hold up?
In many cases debates like this focus on the financial side.
This is at least partially true in this case because the local government took a stand against downloading from the higher levels of government.
This is not an uncommon story.
Over the years, especially during tough times, Ottawa passes the buck onto the provinces and in turn the provinces pass things on to the municipalities.
In this case the line was drawn gingerly in the sand and the Town of Golden Council said no more.
The province, of course, had no reason to make a deal with the town quickly because the service they were not willing to take on was being provided anyway.
It is tough to negotiate when one side is getting what they want during the negotiations.
The thing that may make you sit up and take notice of how red tape can blind us all is the money itself.
The amount of money needed to make sure the taxpayers in Golden were not going to be hit for road rescue on the highway was rather insignificant in the grand scheme of provincial governments.
This deal should have been worked out months ago and this has turned into a great symbol of where the system fails the people it is supposed to represent.
Too often, deals which we all know have to be made, are delayed for any old reason. The different levels of government have become their own versions of opposition parties these days. If one side proposes something, all too often even if it is the best decision, the opposition votes against it just because it came from the other side. At least the road rescue situation is getting fixed and a deal is in place for this year, but it will be interesting to see what happens next year when the deal is up. As always the red tape could return and mess up a good thing.
