Category: Politics

Well, the provincial voting process is over for another 4 years. I'll miss the corny, mildly offensive tv and radio commercials, the racially tinged newspaper ads, the ubiquitous blight of candidate signs plastered over every square inch of public and private land, the news sound bites that cast good and bad light on every baby kissing candidate in the race, the pundits battling over who's better than who, the goofy editorial cartoons that are neither funny nor entertaining (other than Dan Murphy who is usually brilliant), the political discussions with friends, work mates and complete strangers and finally, input and output from all the ignorant authorities who usually don't have a clue. But most of all I'll miss Carole James. Repeat after me Carole..."Would you like fries with your order"?

Today's Province newspaper has an interesting article about our covert Translink Board and its inner workings. Ethan Baron writes that the 9 member board received nearly $575,000 in pay and benefits in 2008-2009. Remember, this is the same board that continually pleads poverty and comes up with new and exciting ways to extract as much money from the pockets of taxpayers as it possibly can. How can this appointed board increase property taxes, increase gasoline taxes and increase transit fare rates by 10% over ten years without answering to the public? The board committed to part of the province's $14-billion transit plan, for a total of $300 million more of your tax dollars. And all this from a group that meets behind closed doors and seems to be unanswerable to…

The recent provincial leadership debate makes me think that there must be better, more articulate people to run our province. Sure, it's tough to sell yourself in a short, controlled debate but neither of the three party heads handled themselves as well as I would expect. Carole James was typically confrontational and constantly attacking Campbell and his policies, offering little in the way of solutions or party direction. Campbell seemed to be uncomfortable, slightly unsettled and even a bit arrogant at times. Jane Sterk seemed to be...well...slightly odd. Neither seemed to be as articulate as I would expect and the debate seemed to be more about personal attacks than trying to do what's best for the residents of this province. Perhaps I've just been Obamacized but can't we do better…