Hundreds attend vigil to honour 20 victims of limousine crash

The Canadian Press

Published

6 years ago

10 minute read

AMSTERDAM, N.Y. — A ceremony for the victims of the limousine crash that killed 20 people ended with participants lifting candles above their heads to signal unity and perseverance.

Over 1,000 people jammed a riverside park in Amsterdam, New York, for Monday night’s vigil as victims’ relatives tried to come to grips with the tragedy that happened as a group of friends and family were on their way to a 30th birthday party.

The supersized limo ran a stop sign and hit a parked SUV on Saturday in Schoharie (skoh-HAYR’-ee).

Authorities have yet to say how fast the limo was going or determine why it failed to stop and sped off the road at the bottom of a long hill.

The 19-seat vehicle had at least some seat belts, but it was unclear whether anyone was wearing them, National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt said.

The crash about 170 miles north of New York City came three years after another deadly stretch-limo wreck in New York state spurred calls for Gov. Andrew Cuomo to examine such vehicles’ safety. There is no evidence the state took any steps to do so.

Some relatives of the dead shed tears as local officials expressed solidarity with them.

U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko, a Democrat from Amsterdam, told a crowd that spilled onto a bridge spanning the Mohawk River, “We are crushed with you, we are crushed for you.”

Some relatives shed tears as a woman sang “Amazing Grace.” The ceremony ended with everyone lifting their candles above their heads in unity.

The wreck killed two pedestrians and all 18 people in the limousine, including four sisters who were headed with friends and relatives to a brewery for a party for one of the sisters.

The four sisters’ aunt, Barbara Douglas, said they had felt “they did the responsible thing getting a limo so they wouldn’t have to drive anywhere.”

“My heart is sunken. It’s in a place where I’ve never felt this type of pain before,” said Karina Halse, who lost her 26-year-old sister Amanda.

Authorities haven’t released the driver’s name, but friends and relatives identified him on social media as Scott Lisinicchia.

“The investigation is STILL going on and the facts are not verified,” his niece, Courtney Lisinicchia, wrote on Facebook.

The state moved to shut down the owner, Prestige Limousine, as state and federal authorities investigated the cause of Saturday’s wreck in Schoharie. The company said it was taking its cars off the road while conducting its own probe into the crash.

Investigators plan to examine the mangled limo’s data recorders and mechanical systems as well as the road, which has a history as a danger spot. They are also looking into the driver’s record and qualifications and conducting an autopsy to see if drugs or alcohol were factors.

But officials already saw some red flags, Cuomo said: The driver didn’t have the necessary commercial license, and the vehicle failed a state inspection that examined such things as the chassis, suspension and brakes.

“In my opinion, the owner of this company had no business putting a failed vehicle on the road,” the governor said while attending a Columbus Day Parade in New York City. “Prestige has a lot of questions to answer.”

He also said the limo — built by cutting apart a heavy-duty SUV and lengthening it — had been created without federal certification, though NTSB officials said they hadn’t yet determined whether the vehicle met federal standards.

Prestige Limousine issued a statement Monday expressing condolences to victims’ families and saying it was conducting “a detailed internal investigation” while also meeting with state and federal authorities.

The Gansevoort, New York-based company said it pulled its cars from the road voluntarily. But state police say they seized four Prestige cars, including the one that crashed.

Federal records show the company has undergone five inspections in the past two years and had four vehicles pulled from service.

In inspections Sept. 4, the company’s limos were cited for defective brakes, lack of proper emergency exits, flat or balding tires, defective windshield wipers, and other maintenance problems.

An attorney for Prestige said Tuesday the safety violations were fixed before Saturday’s wreck. Lee Kindlon told CBS News he doesn’t think the recent infractions contributed. He told the Times Union of Albany the driver may have been unfamiliar with the roadway.

Federal transportation records show Prestige is owned by Shahed Hussain, who worked as an informant for the FBI after the Sept. 11 attacks, infiltrating Muslim groups by posing as a terrorist sympathizer in at least three investigations. In one case, he helped convict men accused of plotting to bomb New York synagogues.

His role at the FBI was assailed by civil liberties groups, who accused him of helping the FBI entrap people. Asked Monday about Hussain, the FBI wouldn’t comment.

The limousine, built from a 2001 Ford Excursion, ran a stop sign at a T-shaped intersection at the bottom of a hill and slammed into an unoccupied SUV.

Investigators have yet to determine whether the driver tried to brake. The crash left no visible skid marks, but that might be due to misty weather or anti-lock brakes, Sumwalt said.

The crash appeared to be the deadliest land-vehicle accident in the U.S. since a bus full of Texas nursing home patients fleeing 2005’s Hurricane Rita caught fire, killing 23. Saturday’s wreck was the nation’s deadliest transportation accident of any kind since a 2009 plane crash near Buffalo, New York, killed 50 people.

Factory-built limousines must meet stringent safety regulations. But luxury cars converted to limos, like the one in Saturday’s crash, often lack such safety components as side-impact air bags, reinforced rollover protection bars and accessible emergency exits.

Few federal regulations govern limos modified after leaving the factory. Regulations often vary by state.

“It certainly is the Wild West out there when it comes to limousines and stretch vehicles,” said National Safety Council CEO Deborah A.P. Hersman.

Ford said in a statement that it has never made its own stretch version of the Excursion. It did certify outside companies to modify them to Ford specifications for up to 14 seats during the 2001 model year, but it wasn’t clear who modified the SUV that crashed Saturday.

After a stretch limousine was T-boned on New York’s Long Island in 2015, killing four women, a special grand jury implored Cuomo to examine the safety of such vehicles.

It appears the task force was never formed, and nearly three years after the grand jury’s recommendation, it was unclear what, if anything, Cuomo’s administration did in response.

“I don’t know if there was a task force set up,” the governor said Monday, while suggesting that Saturday’s crash didn’t necessarily point to a need for more regulation.

“Sometimes, people just don’t follow the law” that already exists, he said. “And that may very well be what happened here.”

The New York grand jury report recommended state lawmakers require stretch limousines that seat nine or more passengers to meet the stricter inspection regulations that apply to buses.

Lawmakers, including Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, asked federal officials several years ago to raise safety standards for stretch limos modified after manufacture.

___

Caserta reported from New York. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Michael Balsamo, Jennifer Peltz and Jim Mustian in New York; Mary Esch in Latham, N.Y.; David Klepper in Albany, N.Y.; and AP Auto Writer Tom Krisher in Detroit.

Michael Hill And Sabrina Caserta, The Associated Press

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Taxpayers Federation calling on BC Government to scrap failed Carbon Tax

Published on January 16, 2025

Todayville

From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

By Carson Binda

BC Government promised carbon tax would reduce CO2 by 33%. It has done nothing.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on the British Columbia government to scrap the carbon tax as new data shows the province’s carbon emissions have continued to rise, despite the oldest carbon tax in the country.

“The carbon tax isn’t reducing carbon emissions like the politicians promised,” said Carson Binda, B.C. Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “Premier David Eby needs to axe the tax now to save British Columbians money.”

Emissions data from the provincial government shows that British Columbia’s emissions have risen since the introduction of a carbon tax.

Total emissions in 2007, the last year without a provincial carbon tax, stood at 65.5 MtCO2e, while 2022 emissions data shows an increase to 65.6 MtCO2e.

When the carbon tax was introduced, the B.C. government pledged that it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 33 per cent.

The Eby government plans to increase the B.C. carbon tax again on April 1, 2025. After that increase, the carbon tax will add 21 cents to the cost of a litre of natural gas, 25 cents per litre of diesel and 18 cents per cubic meter of natural gas.

“The carbon tax has cost British Columbians a lot of money, but it hasn’t helped the environment as promised,” Binda said. “Eby has a simple choice: scrap the carbon tax before April 1, or force British Columbians to pay even more to heat our homes and drive to work.”

If a family fills up the minivan once per week for a year, the carbon tax will cost them $728. The carbon tax on natural gas will add $435 to the average family’s home heating bills in the 12 months after the April 1 carbon tax hike.

Other provinces, like Saskatchewan, have unilaterally stopped collecting the carbon tax on essentials like home heating and have not faced consequences from Ottawa.

“British Columbians need real relief from the costs of the provincial carbon tax,” Binda said. “Eby needs to stop waiting for permission from the leaderless federal government and scrap the tax on British Columbians.”

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The problem with deficits and debt

Published on January 13, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Tegan Hill and Jake Fuss

This fiscal year (2024/25), the federal government and eight out of 10 provinces project a budget deficit, meaning they’re spending more than collecting in revenues. Unfortunately, this trend isn’t new. Many Canadian governments—including the federal government—have routinely ran deficits over the last decade.

But why should Canadians care? If you listen to some politicians (and even some economists), they say deficits—and the debt they produce—are no big deal. But in reality, the consequences of government debt are real and land squarely on everyday Canadians.

Budget deficits, which occur when the government spends more than it collects in revenue over the fiscal year, fuel debt accumulation. For example, since 2015, the federal government’s large and persistent deficits have more than doubled total federal debt, which will reach a projected $2.2 trillion this fiscal year. That has real world consequences. Here are a few of them:

Diverted Program Spending: Just as Canadians must pay interest on their own mortgages or car loans, taxpayers must pay interest on government debt. Each dollar spent paying interest is a dollar diverted from public programs such as health care and education, or potential tax relief. This fiscal year, federal debt interest costs will reach $53.7 billion or $1,301 per Canadian. And that number doesn’t include provincial government debt interest, which varies by province. In Ontario, for example, debt interest costs are projected to be $12.7 billion or $789 per Ontarian.

Higher Taxes in the Future: When governments run deficits, they’re borrowing to pay for today’s spending. But eventually someone (i.e. future generations of Canadians) must pay for this borrowing in the form of higher taxes. For example, if you’re a 16-year-old Canadian in 2025, you’ll pay an estimated $29,663 over your lifetime in additional personal income taxes (that you would otherwise not pay) due to Canada’s ballooning federal debt. By comparison, a 65-year-old will pay an estimated $2,433. Younger Canadians clearly bear a disproportionately large share of the government debt being accumulated currently.

Risks of rising interest rates: When governments run deficits, they increase demand for borrowing. In other words, governments compete with individuals, families and businesses for the savings available for borrowing. In response, interest rates rise, and subsequently, so does the cost of servicing government debt. Of course, the private sector also must pay these higher interest rates, which can reduce the level of private investment in the economy. In other words, private investment that would have occurred no longer does because of higher interest rates, which reduces overall economic growth—the foundation for job-creation and prosperity. Not surprisingly, as government debt has increased, business investment has declined—specifically, business investment per worker fell from $18,363 in 2014 to $14,687 in 2021 (inflation-adjusted).

Risk of Inflation: When governments increase spending, particularly with borrowed money, they add more money to the economy, which can fuel inflation. According to a 2023 report from Scotiabank, government spending contributed significantly to higher interest rates in Canada, accounting for an estimated 42 per cent of the increase in the Bank of Canada’s rate since the first quarter of 2022. As a result, many Canadians have seen the costs of their borrowing—mortgages, car loans, lines of credit—soar in recent years.

Recession Risks: The accumulation of deficits and debt, which do not enhance productivity in the economy, weaken the government’s ability to deal with future challenges including economic downturns because the government has less fiscal capacity available to take on more debt. That’s because during a recession, government spending automatically increases and government revenues decrease, even before policymakers react with any specific measures. For example, as unemployment rises, employment insurance (EI) payments automatically increase, while revenues for EI decrease. Therefore, when a downturn or recession hits, and the government wants to spend even more money beyond these automatic programs, it must go further into debt.

Government debt comes with major consequences for Canadians. To alleviate the pain of government debt on Canadians, our policymakers should work to balance their budgets in 2025.