Frankly Speaking

Photo by Liane Bisaillon Harry Hunt was a photographer for the Aldergrove Star for over 25 years, and for even longer than that, he was an advocate and encourager of young people in sports. He was almost certainly the best-known person in Aldergrove, as was attested by the crowd at his memorial service on Sunday. Harry Hunt demonstrated the finest elements of humanity in his 75 years. He cared about people, particularly young people; he did not betray confidences; he never stopped advocating for his home community of Aldergrove; and he worked until physically unable to do so. Even when dying of cancer and knowing he had just a little time left, he was pulling out the stops to make sure his family was fully taken care of. And in addition to all that, he was an outstanding representative of the community newspaper industry which I have been privileged to be part of for the past 38 years. For the past 25 years, he has been a freelance photographer for the Aldergrove Star ....

This is my last pre-election post, but it's the one I have thought about the longest. It started to germinate when I cleaned out my desk at The Langley Times in June, after 17 years as editor. One of the files I came across was entitled  "Velmagate." Reporters love to attach the suffix "gate" to ongoing issues that have the whiff of political scandal to them. This of course goes back to the granddaddy of all recent political scandals and the likely high water mark in the journalism world - Watergate. There have been plenty of "gates" at The Times and doubtless at almost every other mainstream media outlet in North America. I don't know how Canadians are going to vote on Monday. Like many people, I am guessing that the Liberals will win, but I freely admit that much of that guessing is based on talking heads, who in turn base their opinion and guesses on polls. As I have noted before, polls have been notoriously inaccurate in many recent electi...