Lower Mainland municipal association’s call for regulation of party buses now heads to UBCM

Despite Transport Minister Todd Stone’s refusal yesterday to crack down on party buses, delegates to the annual meeting of the Lower Mainland Local Government Association today voted unanimously to endorse the call for regulation.

The campaign for regulation has been led by Julie Raymond and her daughter Danielle, who lost Danielle’s sister Shannon in a party bus incident in 2008. They were in the Legislature yesterday to see Stone deflect tough questions from Vancouver Fairview MLA George Heyman.

The Raymonds’ efforts are garnering international attention, reaching all the way to France, where recent incidents have sparked a call for action in that country. (You can follow the progress of the campaign at Justice for Shannon Raymond on Facebook.)

But the debate isn’t over: the vote by the LMLGA in Whistler today means the matter will go the UBCM for debate in September. Let’s hope we can get through the grad season without a repeat of the deaths and injuries that have dominated the news in the last few years.