Incompletion

Interesting to hear CBC Radio’s news update report that today’s infrastructure announcement will see the “completion” of the Trans-Labrador Highway.

It’s not easy to tell from the CBC report whether the government reps called it “completion”, or the CBC interpolated the term.

But the Ministry of Truth reports that “up to $51-million”, which isn’t the same thing as $51-million, and which is the same pot of money that will fund the Argentia access project, is being funneled into the TLH for a

project that will see 200 kilometres of the [Trans-Labrador] highway widened* this summer, and 40 kilometres hard-topped.**

The Trans-Labrador Highway, as defined in the National Highway System report, is 1163 kilometres long, from the border near Labrador City to the Blanc Sablon ferry terminal.

A hundred or so of those 1163 kilometres, between Happy Valley-Goose Bay and Paradise River, do not even exist yet.

How, other than in some parallel universe, does widening 200 kilometres, and hard-topping 40, constitute “completion” of the Trans-Labrador Highway?


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* Why didn’t the provincial government build the TLH to width to begin with?

** Does “hard-top” mean “chip seal”, the same surfacing substance that a certain provincial cabinet minister once derided as “cheap seal”?