Moncton — The mystery behind peeling licence plates in the Maritime provinces has been solved. But, the truth behind “plate-gate” unfortunately isn’t the ticket to stopping the problem.
In recent years, the Atlantic provinces have all been stumped about the cause of so many peeling licence plates. It turns out the answer can be traced back to Atlantic Lottery Corporation and misguided Maritimers hoping to win big.
“We admit, this is probably our doing, but we just honestly never saw this coming,” confessed ALC public affairs officer Marianne Peler. “Our intention was to provide a fun game for Atlantic Canadians based on an iconic television show. This whole thing has backfired in a peculiar and unexpected way.”
Five years ago, the Atlantic Lottery Corporation launched a peel-off tab game based on the popular 1980s Canadian game show Bumper Stumpers. “The tickets had cute little jokes on pictures of licence plates, like if you peeled back a winner it said ‘U WIN!’ and things like that,” said Peler. “I think by now you can probably see where this is going.
“Last week, someone walked into the ALC office in Moncton with a completely peeled-off licence plate, asking us to check if it was a winner,” marvelled Peler. “I asked her where she got it, but she wouldn’t say.
“She did say that she has peeled hundreds of plates herself, and there is a Facebook group that talks about the best way to spot winning licence plates as well as how to peel them. Atlantic Canadians put a lot of effort into trying to win the lottery, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. We will be pulling the Bumper Stumpers game off of the market immediately.
“We are now reevaluating our ‘Pot of Gold’ pull-tab game too,” Peler said. “We don’t want any kidnapping of suspected leprechauns, for God’s sake.”