I dreamed I woke up this morning and found a plastic me.
- Len Chandler
THE post-election lull with its pie-in-the-face consequences for fresh environmental thinking surely brings a heavy karmic burden.
Traditionally, the key to election success in the political barnyard has been in determining the right mix of cliché and originality. Two weeks ago everything got simplified.
At least we've got the script clear for B.C.'s next four years. The future for our kids is about burning oil, coal, gas, plenty of it, and selling lots and lots more of it to Asia: that was the deal, right? Fooey on greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and related freak natural catastrophes. As the Class Queen explained, it's about the economy, stupid.
OK, the Greenies keep telling us that more and more we're like polar bears, trying to live on melting ice. But global warming is too complicated to think about when you're voting, or shopping. Besides, it'll be years yet before we end up like Mars - desolate, lifeless, burnt to a crisp. Never mind the Nobel Prize-winning scientist guy that the Greens elected near the University of Victoria. What would a bunch of intellectuals know about anything?
Fellow endangered Earthlings, sleep tight. With Adrian Dix and the socialist hordes beaten back by the fashion police, we can return to collective political amnesia, confident like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, that the future is in petroleum and plastics.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, author of the famous underwear poem we all tittered over in high school, says "Capitalism is an outrageously extravagant form of existence." Believe him. Paying for it is even more expensive than those lacy knickers in Victoria's Secret. Not to start a Happy Hour panic buying spree on Zig-Zag rolling papers, but unless somebody was fibbing - I mean, if it's really about the economy and not just scaring the pants off people about losing their jobs - and if the oil and gas pipedream fizzles like my five BRIC shares, then there's no alternative to getting on with things same as Washington and Colorado to the south. We're talking serious capitalist tax dollars, comrade, and there's no plausible reason to allow organized gangsters to continue running the bazillion-dollar action.
When more than 60 per cent of the nation - that's nine per cent more than voted in B.C. - says repeatedly that it prefers a less hostile approach on the use of soft highs like cannabis, the Harper administration's federal get-tough policy is a throwback to the Stone Age, no pun intended. At my age, I'd probably dematerialize with a toke of what they're smoking nowadays, but a little research does seem in order.
It's about the economy: we need facts. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
After she secures a safe seat in the kind of riding where they elect a donkey if it wears a B.C. Liberal jacket, perhaps on one of her forthcoming trade missions across the Pacific, Premier Clark can check out the state of Western Australia. They deal with the issue by allowing interested gardeners to grow up to two plants for personal use. That sounds about right. It's highly ornamental and the sale of assorted bongs would boost B.C.'s struggling glass-blowing industry as well. Clear out the geriatric deadwood on the issue and get some glowing minds involved.
Like my amigo Trevor Lautens from Tiddleycove, a veritable David among Goliaths, who courageously called the correct shot in the election. Remember that you read it here first.
Meanwhile, a coast to coast drive in North Vancouver with my old mum a few days back - Deep Cove through Lynn Valley out to the wilds of upper Capilano and back through the wicked City - provided a few pointers about what's on local minds. Uncanny how often public transit issues arise. People are serious about getting around more often without the car. One spark here should be the election of Peter Fassbender, the popular mayor of Langley City, as MLA for Surrey-Fleetwood. Fassbender has served as chairman and vice-chairman of Metro Vancouver's mayors' council, so he knows well the challenges ahead, and I think we can finally expect to see substantive action concerning Lower Mainland transit improvements. At a private dinner last year, I was impressed with his grasp of transportation issues, knowledge of North Shore linkages in particular, and intelligent, old-school gentlemanly presence. You'll hear newly elected Marvin Hunt, a longtime Surrey councillor and another former chairman of the Metro Vancouver board, speaking on these issues too, but he's of different cloth. Unless he's radically changed his spots from when I served two years on the GVRD Water Board with him, Hunt's sympathy for environmental concerns is of the muscular Christian, Cheney-Harper variety. Expect him to grind hard for Surrey.
In view of the wallop the Liberals took on their HST vote, Christy Clark's election proposal of a municipal election day referendum in 2014 on transit funding suddenly looks a very risky promise for a government that wants to please. Cooler minds will surely prevail and another funding resolution process articulated, although a public vote on cash-grabbers like road-pricing would be more democratic.
At Seylynn, near the Second Narrows bridgehead, development is underway on the three forthcoming condo towers set to explode higher than anything in Jack and the Beanstalk, courtesy of a sweetheart gift of extra floors, visual impact, and profit by the District of North Vancouver. There's concern among Inter-River community residents nearby for the health of lower Lynn Canyon and Lynn Creek once thousands of new residents arrive. They've requested a meeting with DNV Parks regarding plans.
A mile up the road, I checked out the refinery across Burrard Inlet. The Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion debate won't go away. It'll simply take new forms and the Liberals in Victoria will need watching like hawks. Adrian Dix didn't offer the wrong answer about this one; he only gave half the answer and that was his undoing. On such decisions are governments won or lost. If he'd made it clear that the pipeline was worth looking at, but that a different end-terminal site was absolutely imperative - the way we heard that his environment critic John Horgan was already discussing privately with Kinder Morgan - Christy Clark would likely have been looking for a job back in radio.
Taking someone you love out for a spin yourself? The End of the Line General Store at the top of Lynn Valley Road and Dempsey, where Lynn Headwaters Park begins, is still a funky rest stop. Out west, try the Capilano Grind Coffee Bakehouse. It's adjacent to the Cleveland Dam on the Canyon Heights Christian Assembly Church corner at Capilano Road and Montroyal. Both cosy and local as can be.
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