Crying the licence plate blues, the red-faced Progressive Conservatives are shifting into reverse and bringing back Ontario’s traditional white plates for the time being.

After two weeks of embarrassing headlines over the flawed new double-blue plates that cannot be seen in certain light, the Tories said they would resume distribution of the old plates next Thursday.

Embattled Government and Consumer Services Minister Lisa Thompson, who last week derided the white design as “Liberal plates” even though they originated with PC premier Bill Davis in 1973, was forced to make the U-turn.

New and improved versions of the “enhanced” plates should be available from supplier 3M by March 16, but stockpiles of the old white plates will be used up first, Thompson said in a statement Friday.

“3M Canada is providing material to the province and testing is being completed by law enforcement and key stakeholders,” she added.

Her office insisted the oft-unreadable blue plates are not unsafe.

“While the current Ontario licence plate does not pose a safety risk, this action will minimize the number of Ontarians who will need replacement plates.”

But it remains unclear whether the revised plates — unveiled with much fanfare in last April’s budget but not publicly available until this month — will resemble the controversial double-blue motif that has been likened to a Q-tip box.

“The new design for the enhanced plate is still in development and undergoing testing, including consultations with all partners,” a senior government official told the Star.

“We will communicate more details about the enhanced plates as we continue to move forward.”

However, the new slogan “A Place To Grow,” which replaced the white plate’s “Yours To Discover,” will remain on the rejigged version.

With Thompson shielded from the media for more than a week now, it was left to Deputy Premier Christine Elliott to clean up the communications mess.

“Governments don’t always do things perfectly, as you know,” Elliott told reporters at Queen’s Park. “The important thing is to acknowledge it, fix it, and then move on.”

The Conservatives maintain the revamp will come “at no cost to Ontario taxpayers.”

Sources say 3M has signed a nondisclosure agreement with the province to conceal how much it will cost the company to replace the 71,000 blue licence plates issued since Feb. 1.

New Democrat MPP Jennifer French (Oshawa) said the Tories have still not explained why the double-blue plates don’t work and questioned how the government can claim there are not safety issues.

“I don’t understand what they see as safe about invisible licence plates,” she said. “These were rolled out before they were road-tested.”

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French noted that the government “knowingly issued tens of thousands of defective blue license plates” all month and “will continue issuing the faulty plates for another week.”

Sources confide that Premier Doug Ford is furious over the snafu, first identified by a Kingston police officer in a tweet that went viral two weeks ago.

Thompson initially denied any problem and the premier, who ran his family’s label-printing company before getting into politics, is unhappy with her damage-control efforts.

Distribution of the much-mocked Tory-blue “propaganda plates” will cease when Service Ontario centres and kiosks close for business next Wednesday.

“Customers who receive white embossed plates in the interim period will not receive new enhanced plates to replace them unless they are damaged, delaminated, lost or stolen,” the government said.

Motorists who have received the blue plates will be contacted by mail with instructions on how to get replacement.

The Tories, scrambling to do damage control for more than a week, had previously said replacements would be sent by mail.

Licence plate validation stickers will also be reissued with new plates.

Any remaining stock of the blue plates will be recycled.

The 71,000 botched plates represent less than one per cent of the 7.6 million licence plates issues in Ontario.

Robert Benzie is the Star’s Queen’s Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

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