It’s a sad Monday morning around the CTF, as we mourn the passing of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. She will be greatly missed, but her leadership will shine brightly for decades to come.

Here’s another edition of the Monday Morning Quarterback – five things the B.C. office of the CTF is pondering heading into the week.

1. Despite the B.C. Ambulance Service’s (unproven) claims that we have world-class trauma response in B.C., northerners are 12 times more likely to die due to inefficient and ineffective Air Ambulance service and other trauma response. From the front page of today’s Sun:

[Auditor General John Doyle’s] March 21 report, the first audit on the air ambulance section of BC Ambulance Service, found air ambulance services weren’t adequately reviewing dispatch decisions or properly reporting or addressing safety issues. He also found that lesser- skilled paramedics are sometimes sent out together because of staff shortages.

One study from 2002 used BC Coroners Service data to find there was an alarming 75 per cent pre-hospital trauma-related death rate in northern B.C., a rate about six times higher than that in the Lower Mainland, where it’s 12 per cent.

Statistics from Vancouver Coastal Health show the northern and interior health regions experience the highest incidences of trauma overall.

But in the north there is only one fixed- wing jet, even though ground ambulances often have to drive long distances, face bad weather conditions, and sometimes can’t get to patients at all.

2. Nanaimo’s city hall continues to bloat – operating costs are up 22 per cent in five years, with 41 new staffers on the payroll – plus extra cops and firefighters (Nanaimo Daily News). Time for mayor and council to show some restraint!

3. Not to pick on Nanaimo, because this nonsense is happening all over the province, but the Island city now has 17 taxpayer-subsidized electric vehicle charging stations. Fact: there are only 11 insured electric vehicles in Nanaimo – and only 285 in B.C. as a whole.

4. Why has TransLink been giving free rides to off duty cops and firefighters – many of whom make more than $100,000 annually? And why won’t they release a full list of the organizations who get this sweetheart deal? To the FOI machine!

5. In hysterical news, a new poll claims 72 per cent of people support more money for TransLink. This has been spouted all over the transit blogosphere as some great leap forward. But the same poll shows no specific funding option scored over 37 per cent support – meaning, in actuality, that people do not support more funding tools for TransLink. Fine in theory, but when it comes to actually handing over more dough to the bloated, wasteful TransLink administration, the majority say no.