Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/118148
takefive ADVOCAACY CAA Partner Wins Consumer Choice Award – Again FOR THE SECOND YEAR IN A row, Precision Auto Body Repairs in Saskatoon has been selected a best service provider by Consumer Choice Award. The company is a valued member of CAA's Approved Auto Repair Service (AARS) network. Consumer Choice Award recognizes and promotes business excellence by conducting annual surveys of consumers across North America and selecting winners within each industry. Precision Auto Body Repairs has been in operation for 35 years and continually strives to provide outstanding customer service and superior workmanship in a family-style atmosphere. ℹ precisionautobody.ca Last summer, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the completion of the Trans-Canada Highway, award-winning journalist and author Mark Richardson embarked on a coast-to-coast roadtrip. Sponsored by CAA, he drove the entire length of the Trans-Canada in a Chevy Camaro convertible. His adventures will be recounted in a future book project. End of the road for author Mark Richardson and son Tristan in Victoria, B.C. Rocky Road to Completion by Mark Richardson O Seeking Scholarship Candidates IS ANYONE IN YOUR FAMILY furthering their education? Under its corporate scholarship program, CAA Saskatchewan offers three annual entrance scholarships of $2,500 each to students attending the University of Saskatchewan, University of Regina and SIAST. Applicants must be either a CAA Saskatchewan member or child of a member, and a resident of Saskatchewan. Application forms and other details are available from each institution. ℹ caask.ca/scholarship 44 W E S T W O R L D p40-45_Take_5.indd 44 >> WINTER 2012 NE HUNDRED YEARS AGO THIS past spring, several dozen members of the newly formed Canadian Highway Association met in Alberni (now Port Alberni) on Vancouver Island, with a convoy of 50 cars from the Victoria Automobile Club. They wanted to make it known that Canada needed a national highway to link the provinces from the Pacific to the Atlantic. There were less than 50,000 cars in the country, but their numbers were increasing dramatically each year; wheeled travel was taking over from horses, who were so easily spooked by the unfamiliar engines. The lobbying drivers staked the first signpost of the "Canadian Highway" in Alberni next to the Pacific. They predicted the Trans-Canada would be built within five years. It would take 50. After the Second World War, Canada entered a period of prosperity: unemployment and inflation were low; there was no need to prop up the economy with public works projects. As well, Quebec did not want to spend its money on a highway linking it to English Canada, and when Newfoundland joined Confederation in 1949, it made a similar argument for better allocation of available funds. But national pride, and the potential in other parts of the country for tourist dollars, could not be thwarted. In December 1949, the Trans-Canada Highway Act was passed through Parliament. The road was budgeted at $300 million and slated for completion by 1956; true to form, though, costs soared and deadlines were missed as construction challenges mounted. Once the road through Rogers Pass was completed, the Trans-Canada Highway officially opened in 1962. Again true to form, provincial-federal squabbling got in the way: then-premier W.A.C. Bennett of B.C. declared the road open at a ceremony on July 30 without once mentioning Canada; and on September 3, then-prime-minister John Diefenbaker declared the highway open at a ceremony nearby without mentioning that the cost had grown to more than $1.1 billion. Still, large sections of the two-lane road were still unpaved and not built to the standards set out in the original act. It was not until 1971 that the Trans-Canada Highway – the longest road in the world, spanning 8,000 kilometres and six time zones – was truly considered complete. It's still being worked on, realigned and improved today. iStock, (top) courtesy John Yanyshyn/CP/CAA 12-10-19 10:06 AM