An acquaintance reminded me the other day that it was a mere three months until election day for British Columbians everywhere. I felt like a dog who'd been startled awake by a familiar noise; oh yes, that's right, we still have elections here in B.C.
And I recall that I was once a candidate in one of these elections, a mere four years ago. I thanked my acquaintance for reminding me, and then promptly asked the sophomore question: "who cares?"
I'm being deadly serious. I cannot remember the last time I heard anything that sounded like a convincing policy statement from either major party.
I've certainly noticed how all of a sudden the province seems flush with cash for key demographics' pet projects, but this kind of chicanery is nothing new.
Please, seriously, somebody pinch me, because I think voter turnout might be a record low this year given the lack of oxygen required to travel to and from the ballot box.
There isn't a lack of issues. The economy is still a dumpster fire of disappointment, with many key projects stalled, making no money for anyone but legal teams, consultants and marketing specialists.
There is also the issue of housing bubbles, and the growing disparity in wealth between boomers and their millennial offspring; it appears the going assumption is that parental wealth will be the key to my generation's future - which sounds a lot like feudalism.
Missing and murdered women, gaming grants, game allocations, the carbon trust, education, healthcare... I guess I could just make lists or I could simply state there are a lot of issues out there that apparently nobody has the time to pick up and give a shake to see what kind of wedge they can get out of it. I'm trying to remember if even some of the crazier parties have made any noise in the direction of the great idol "climate change" in the last year or so.
Now, I will give the narrowest of pardons to our dear leaders near and far with respects to the "Trump effect" taking up everyone's attention span, column ink, hash-tags, etc while leaving little to no room to discuss their agendas with the now exhausted electorate. But this narrowest of pardons requires serious penance: namely to get back to being the grown-ups we elected you to be and start addressing the serious issues, instead of playing Father Christmas with our tax dollars.
It's not really a tall order - and I'm getting tired of the unoriginal, bourgeois, liberal, cosmopolitan, self-appointed realists telling me "you're just too naive, Nathan."
Actually, you people are the ignorant, not me. I've been part of the precariat my entire adult life, and I'm a son of the professional class, for crying out loud.
I've met real working people, I've worked real jobs that make real products - and we, the working people, are deeply worried about the future.
Virtue signalling and ribbon cuttings will not satisfy forever.
Eventually, the diversity agendas, new buildings, and rhetoric that acknowledges the traditional something of god-knows-who will be seen as just so much chaff by the silent majority of the very demographics you are supposedly placating.
Ever dwindling opportunities, ever-growing incompetent management, rising costs, and ballooning debts will eventually drive people over the edge.
This is not a new lesson. It is the oldest political lesson in the book - quiet times, even poor times, are the periods best spent cleaning house before the next guy comes along and does it for you.
The party currently in power owes it existence directly to people having had enough of the status quo - does it really think it is immune to an assault on the same grounds?
In the end, this will not be the election where great change comes.
The hour is late, and the people are exhausted from the tidal waves observed elsewhere.
But the old adage about letting sleeping dogs lie rings true. I'd caution our dear leaders from waking us all at once by accident.
