The controversial overhaul of Alberta’s licence plates has been halted by the Prentice government.
On Thursday afternoon, Premier Jim Prentice announced the new licence plate design, which was proposed under the Alison Redford regime, would not come to fruition.
“There’ll be no further work on new licence plates for Alberta,” said Prentice. "Money would be better spent on schools and other priorities for Albertans."
“Albertans want us to deal with priorities they have identified in health care, education, infrastructure and seniors," said Prentice. "Changing the design of Alberta’s licence plates is not one of them. We are going to invest our time, effort and resources on the clearly identified priorities of Albertans.”
The proposed plates would have replaced the current blank background design with Alberta scenery, included the Alberta.ca website, and removed the Wild Rose Country slogan.
Albertans chose the design from three suggested licence plate options in an online poll.
The cost of public consultation into the licence plate designs has not been released but Prentice says the design of the plates was covered by 3M.
Prentice adds the cost to supply plates for the 4.8 million vehicles in Alberta would be approximately $15 million.
