Frankly Speaking

Frank Bucholtz photo This instruction to voters was posted all over Sierra Leone (in West Africa), as voters there prepared to vote in a presidential runoff election in March. As noted near the bottom of the poster, the Government of Canada (i.e. Canadian taxpayers)  helped to support the voter education process. The runoff election went very smoothly. If democracy can be that resilient and powerful in Sierra Leone, it most certainly can be the same in B.C. The shouting is almost over. The signs, somewhat reduced in number, will be coming down. Surrey and White Rock voters will elect new councils and a new Surrey Board of Education on Saturday. The same process will take place in Delta, Langley City, Langley Township and municipalities across B.C. It has been a unique civic election campaign. Here in the South Fraser region, there is the very unusual prospect of electing four new mayors. Longtime Delta Mayor Lois Jackson, Surrey Mayor Linda Hepner, White Rock...

The Canadian hand-wringing over Donald Trump is palpable. There is hardly a media or political figure who won't go out of their way to denounce the Republican candidate for president of the United States. The most recent one to jump aboard was James Moore, former Conservative cabinet minister, who painted quite a dark and foreboding picture on CBC Radio's The Early Edition Friday morning. They may all be correct. However, it isn't up to Canadians to elect or defeat Trump. That is the job given to American voters, who hopefully will turn out at the polls in droves in November. I watched almost all of Trump's acceptance speech at the Republican convention on Thursday. I wanted to hear it for myself - not through a variety of media filters. I also wanted to compare it with earlier speeches I'd seen him make after primary wins. Those, I thought at the time, were stream of consciousness speeches - with him saying whatever came into his head. I wondered if this would...