Santa has a bag full of gifts for politicians
This is an update of a sneak preview
of gifts Santa has for some of the newsmakers who affect our lives. The
original was written in the midst of the windstorm of Dec. 20, just before the power
went out at my home and in thousands of other places on or near the B.C. south
coast.
Of course, that was the day the White
Rock pier broke apart in the storm, and the day the electoral reform referendum
results came down.
As a result of all that, Santa let
me know that an update of the gifts he was giving was required. Over a bowl of
Christmas cheer, I acquiesced.
Santa had to change his list quite
dramatically this year – even as late as Thursday, Dec. 20. So many of the politicians
he had gifts for were summarily dumped by voters in October, and that didn’t
give the elves in his workshop much time to retool. However, he’s managed to do
his best with the time he had available.
He
knew earlier that Linda Hepner wasn’t going to be mayor of Surrey, after she
announced she wasn’t running again. He had prepared a fine scale model of the
Surrey LRT line from Newton to Guildford, complete with advance traffic
signals, separated pedestrian points and everything. The cancellation of the
project caused him to think about something else for her, but then he went
ahead anyway. She did love LRT so.
The
new mayor and man who pulled the plug on LRT is Doug McCallum. Santa didn’t
know he would come back as mayor 13 years after leaving the post, and very few
political pundits predicted such a result. Santa always has some backup gifts
which can be pulled out at a moment’s notice. He thought McCallum might get a
kick out of an old IBM desktop computer - the kind that were supposed to stop
functioning on Jan. 1, 2000 because of the phenomenon known as Y2K. He figured
McCallum would be the only person in the new Surrey city hall with one, and his
term as Surrey’s latest mayor is definitely a “Back to the Future” kind of
moment.
Delta
Mayor George Harvie is new at his job, but very familiar with how the city
operates from his many years as administrator. Santa thought an appropriate
gift might be an immersion course in local politics, but then the province
announced it wasn’t even going to come up with a plan to increase traffic flow
at the Massey Tunnel chokepoint until 2020. After that experience, he figured
Harvie was now fully immersed. Instead, he plans to give the new mayor a number
of decommissioned ferries so commuters can (very slowly) cross the Fraser
between Delta and Richmond, while interminably waiting for the decision.
These can be used (symbolically,
of course) to urge Premier John Horgan and Transportation Minister Clare
Trevena to stop dithering, but good luck on that front. The island pair, out of
touch with Lower Mainland reality, have taken dithering to a fine art with
their inaction and outright obfuscation on ride-sharing.
As
an anti-dithering gift, Santa decided Horgan and Trevena could use replacement
of their smartphones. He’s come up with a pair of the clunky, brick-like cell
phones of the early 1990s. These too will be symbolic - to remind the pair of
the need to allow this province to join the rest of the world and adopt
ride-hailing services. Using smartphones to make trip planning easier and
faster is long overdue - Santa uses Uber himself to ensure all gifts arrive on time.
New
White Rock Mayor Darryl Walker is rather soft-spoken, as a former union
president. Santa has given him a megaphone. He wants to be sure that everyone
can hear him at a council meeting. He has also brought him a timer so that the
many citizens who will take advantage of the restored question period stay
within time limits.
On a more serious note, Santa has
joined Walker and other White Rock citizens in asking both Ottawa and Victoria
to help fund repairs of the historic pier very promptly. Please, no delays for environmental
studies, or waits for announcements of the latest infrastructure program. This
pier is a very important icon for White Rock residents and many visitors from across
the world. Personally, we have taken visitors from several African countries
there and they marvelled at the pier, the white rock and the beach. White Rock
is a very special place, and the pier is a key part of that experience.
Surrey school board chair Laurie
Larsen simply wants a number of new schools. Santa is going to help by giving
tents to all the Surrey students who don’t have a classroom to learn in. He’s
arranging a campout on the legislature lawns in Victoria in the spring, just to
let island politicians like Horgan and Education Minister Rob Fleming know
that, on this side of the pond, new schools were needed years ago.
On the windstorm front, Santa is
giving all BC Hydro line crews Christmas Day off. He is doing his very best to
help them complete repairs by midnight on Dec. 24. He, like many of us, wishes
to thank them for their very hard work in helping us all recover from a very
significant storm. Their work makes landing his sleigh on roofs across B.C. so
much easier – no need to dodge live power lines.
Santa has a special gift for the
political watchers, junkies and pundits among us. (I plead guilty). He says
2019 will be an extraordinary political year, in the world, in Canada and in
B.C.
The biggest world political news
will likely take place in the U.S. and in Great Britain. While U.S. President
Donald Trump is likely to remain in office through the year, the large number
of resignations from his cabinet, the guilty plea from his former attorney, and
the incoming Democrat-controlled House of Representatives will make the year
extraordinary on so many fronts. Tryumps’ tweets will make things even more interesting.
Even Santa follows him on Twitter.
In Britain, it is very unlikely that
Prime Minister Theresa May will stay in office, Santa says. Whatever happens
with Brexit, her time in office will be done.
In Canada, there will be a federal
election in October, 2019. For most of his term as prime minister, Justin
Trudeau has looked unbeatable. A lot has changed, and polls indicate the election
could be close.
One very interesting factor will be
the NDP. Trudeau captured a lot of NDP votes in 2015. New NDP leader Jagmeet
Singh is looking to have feet of clay (an excellent article by Charlie Smith of
the Georgia Straight on his leadership is well worth reading). He might not
even last until election day. If he does stay, the NDP seat count will likely
collapse, and the party may end up with no more than the seats they won in
1993, when they hit historic lows in voter interest and seats. The party won
nine seats, after having 44 in Parliament. One reason was leader Audrey McLaughlin,
a cipher in the history of Canadian politics.
Santa is non-partisan, and has a
lot of interest in Canada because of its proximity to the North Pole. He will
be following the Canadian federal scene closely.
Then of course, there is an
Alberta election in 2019. NDP Premier Rachel Notley is likely to go down in flames
(it was a bit of a fluke that she won in 2015) and she will go down fighting. As
the Smith article indicates, she may well be in the running to be the next
federal NDP leader, should that happen.
Albertans are very angry with Trudeau,
the federal government, the B.C. government, Quebec and much of the country.
The flames of separatism are not yet burning, but there are far more sparks
than there have been since the heyday of the Western Canada Concept in the early
1980s.
Here in B.C., Santa found the results
of the electoral reform vote (announced Dec. 20) fascinating. Like many observers,
he wonders if the NDP deliberately threw the vote, by being so vague on details
and offering three proportional representation options, two of which have never
been used anywhere.
He knows that Attorney-General David
Eby, the cabinet minister in charge of the referendum, is often too clever by
half. Did the vote get sabotaged to bring a premature end to the NDP/Green partnership?
If so, or perhaps even if it was
all legitimate, that partnership could collapse sometime in 2019. That may mean
a provincial election – perhaps close to the time of the federal election. Another
very important factor will be the byelection in Nanaimo, an NDP seat vacated by
Leonard Krog, who was elected mayor of Nanaimo (where the power remains off in
many places, and water services also have challenges).
Nanaimo voters were opposed to PR,
rejecting it by a 54-46 (per cent) margin. Many of them were undoubtedly NDP
supporters. A significant number did not back Horgan’s call to vote for PR. Would
they also stray over to the Liberal or Green candidates in the byelection? If
so, the result could be very interesting.
Santa knows that B.C. politics are among the most interesting
in Canada, so he will be keeping an eye on reports from here, as he is busy
crafting 2019 gifts at the North Pole.
Santa wishes everyone a very Merry Christmas.
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