VICTORIA -- Across British Columbia, regional media outlets were invited in recent weeks to capture images of their local MLAs handing out free booster seats to needy families.
The events, part of a government program promoting car safety for children, generated plenty of positive news coverage - what, after all, could be sweeter than helping to keep kids safe?
But the goodies weren't made available to a single Opposition MLA. Instead, the provincially funded program exclusively used the offices of Liberal MLAs to distribute 2,000 free seats.
"There's no politics in booster seats," Linda Reid, the Minister of State for Child Care, insisted yesterday. "My interest was the best reach across British Columbia. I think we have accomplished that."
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While the seats eventually may have been made available to families across the province, the photo opportunities for politicians certainly were not.
Yesterday, the NDP Opposition released the names of nine Liberal MLAs who garnered media coverage with the handouts.
Attorney-General Wally Oppal posed for the Indo-Canadian Voice newspaper presenting free booster seats.
"Kids first" read the caption in Burnaby Now, over a photograph of a smiling John Nuraney, Liberal MLA for Burnaby-Willingdon.
Stan Hagen, Minister of Tourism, was pictured in his local newspaper clipping a five-year-old boy safely into his new car seat.
"I think children's safety was used for partisan purposes. And I think that's disgusting," concluded NDP child care critic Claire Trevena.
"We got no information about this program at all, we had [NDP] MLAs who called for booster seats as far back as August and still haven't heard back on whether they can get booster seats to distribute."
Later, under questioning, the government provided a list of the 12 distribution sites, all of them belonging to Liberal MLAs.
Starting next July, all children over 40 pounds (18 kilograms) will need to use a booster seat for car rides until they are nine years old or at least 4 foot 9 (1.4 metres) tall.
The seats typically cost around $35 and the B.C. Automobile Association Traffic Safety Foundation, which spearheaded the initiative, sought help from the province to provide seats for low-income families.
David Dunne, director of provincial programs for the foundation, said yesterday that he didn't notice that only Liberal MLAs were helping hand out the seats.
"It's unfortunate, hopefully this doesn't overshadow the passenger-safety issue," he said yesterday.
"We're trying to save lives. I don't see this as a political issue," Mr. Dunne said in an interview.
"Our ultimate destination for these seats are families who would not otherwise have the means to buy a seat."
He said he needed distribution spots around the province.
And when 12 Liberal MLAs stepped up during the summer to offer their constituency offices, "I breathed a sigh of relief."
The foundation's Mr. Dunne could not say if the seats were distributed equally throughout B.C. because there weren't enough free seats to meet demand.
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