The first sign that things are going to be different around here:
A woman known as Casandra Effe, calling herself “an average West Coast, middle-class mom voter” posts a letter on Facebook to newly elected prime minister Justin Trudeau.
It’s the sort of thing you’d expect from your mom if mom was intelligent, thoughtful and a passionate advocate for democratic reform. It was especially meaningful to all those people who held their noses and voted “strategically,” to heave Stephen Harper, not because they loved Trudeau 2.0.
As Casandra wrote to Justin: “Get real about your win. Accept it with humility and modesty, and treat your fellow left politicians with respect and gratitude, for it is their supporters who got you here with your sweeping majority, and not your own.”
An eloquent variation on the classic mom message: Don’t get too big for your britches, sonny. It went viral, shared 45,000 times and counting. That wasn’t so unusual; any self-respecting cat video could do the same. What was unusual is that he answered.
“Your honesty and frank words have resonated across the country,” he wrote, “and I take them to heart.” He went on to say he’s a little busy picking a cabinet right now but he’ll get right on it. He even encouraged her to send another top 10 “somewhere down the road.”
Which gives me an idea.
My name is Paul Esse, and I’m an average West Coast middle-class dad columnist, and here’s my own Top 10 list for the posse of Liberals elected Oct. 19. Pam Goldsmith- Jones, Jonathan Wilkinson and Terry Beech, you know who you are.
1) Keep it green. Casandra sums it up beautifully: “… consider moderation, balance, and sustainable practices, instead of debating the validity of the ‘climate change’ phrase.”
2) Keep it affordable. Maybe the horse has already left the barn on this one. The average price of a residential property in North Vancouver is $809,950. This would be viewed with alarm by any sane person, but it was hardly a campaign issue.
3) Keep it clean. Or as Casandra puts it: “Please don’t be bought.” I think the three new MPs are ethically exemplary … now. The real trick is to continue to work for the people, not just a few people with money and power.
4) Keep it moving. All this talk about infrastructure gets me excited (I know, get a life). It probably doesn’t mean rapid transit on the North Shore, at least not in my lifetime. But why not make it possible to get over Burrard Inlet in a timely fashion? Is that too much to ask?
5) Keep it kind. It’s hard to believe, but there are more than 200 homeless people on the North Shore. Maybe not so hard to believe when the average price of a residence is $809,950. These people need a place to live, folks, now, before it gets any colder.
6) Keep it sane. The Harper government’s hostility to science and reason is one of the main reasons I voted strategically. How about a pledge right now to commit to the principle that environmental assessments must be scientifically, not politically grounded, and while they’re at it, bow to the overwhelming evidence that the world is 4.5 billion years old (not 10,000).
7) Keep it multicultural: As Justin Trudeau says: A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. Let’s remember that includes First Nations to newly arrived refugees from some place that addresses multiculturalism with the death penalty.
8) Keep it free. Fix Bill C-51 now. And while you’re at it, stomp out S-7, the Barbaric Cultural Practices Act (and the odious tip line). We should be able to protect ourselves against terrorists without becoming terrorists.
9) Keep it clear: or as Casandra says, “no political mumbo jumbo say-nothing jibber jabber.” Couldn’t have said it better myself. Also clear in the “transparent” sense. No more dirty little secrets, as in who paid off whom for what?
10) Keep it democratic. Vote for proportional representation so everyone’s vote counts. Even if it is for someone else.
Journalist and communications consultant Paul Sullivan has been a North Vancouver resident since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of Madonna. He can be reached via email at [email protected].
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