New Brunswick — Dealing with an avalanche of licence plates being returned due to peeling, the New Brunswick government has decided on a new solution. Beginning Aug. 1, vehicle owners will instead be allowed to decorate the plates themselves.
“It was just taking too damn long and costing too much money to efficiently replace the plates,” said Benoît Bourque, Minister responsible for Service New Brunswick. “This will allow New Brunswickers to show off their creativity and express themselves. And save us lots of money.
“We really hope residents will take this opportunity to showcase New Brunswick icons, be it amazing places like the Hopewell Rocks, Parlee Beach, the Big Axe in Nackawic — or it could include important people from New Brunswick, like Donald Sutherland, Frank McKenna or Brian Gallant.”
However, there will be some restrictions. As with personalized licence plates, the decorated plates could be rejected for using “words or symbols socially unacceptable, offensive, not in good taste, or implying an official authority.”
“This is going to mean no copyrighted logos, no gang-related symbols, references to drugs or alcohol, no nudity, and no portraits of Blaine Higgs,” Bourque went on. “Also, there will be a limit on how much the plate can contain the colours blue, orange, green, and purple. We want to keep politics out of this.”
Once residents have completed their designs, they will have to bring the plates into their local Service New Brunswick centre to have them approved.