Feds won’t soon live down closure of Kits Coast Guard
Posted February 24, 2013 5:48 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The Harper Government really wants the Kitsilano Coast Guard issue to go away, but a marketing expert doesn’t think it’ll happen.
Social media may be working against the Tories.
The Kitsilano Coast Guard Station was abruptly closed by Ottawa on Tuesday, and SFU’s Lindsay Meredith says doing that as reporters were entrenched in the provincial budget would have worked out 10 years ago, but not now.
“There’s a little thing out there called social networking. Its really changed the landscape of communication and that, as more than anything, guarantee a lot of these issues don’t fall off the political map anymore. They stay alive, they simmer, they burn, and people don’t tend to forget. Example, HST,” he says.
Meredith adds when you’re talking public safety, it has immediate resonance with the public. “You know, if this were a low profile issue, they would have got away with it.”
And for cost savings of $700,000, Meredith believes for the Tories, the fallout probably hasn’t been worth it.
“You are talking about public safety. I has an awful lot of immediate perception with the public and, you know, if lives are at risk you’re playing with a bombshell and all over $700,000,” says Meredith.
