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SULLIVAN: The real new year starts with a writ being dropped

Happy new year! The real new year, that is. On the first working day after Labour Day, we stow the shorts and the flip-flops, put on our big boy and girl clothes, roll up our sleeves (now that we have them), and get back to work. Summer’s over.
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Happy new year! The real new year, that is. On the first working day after Labour Day, we stow the shorts and the flip-flops, put on our big boy and girl clothes, roll up our sleeves (now that we have them), and get back to work.

Summer’s over. Kaput. We can try to drag a couple more pseudo-summer afternoons out of the patio, but have to get the angle just right.

And it’s no use waiting for the calendar to officially declare New Year’s Day on Jan. 1. It’s too dark and wet and features too much Ryan Seacrest. Anyway, at that point, the new year is already four months old.

By Jan. 1, we could have a whole new federal government. As I write, the writ will be dropped tomorrow for an Oct. 21 vote, and by the time Jan. 1 rolls around, the honeymoon will already be over.

We will certainly have a realigned federal government, as we get to weigh in on four years of Justin Trudeau’s leadership. Four years! Remember when he liked to get his picture taken so much he would photobomb weddings?

The race promises to be so tight, that what we do with our votes in B.C. may actually have an impact on who forms the next government, and whether or not it will be a minority, as many believe, or a majority.

This is contrary to the usual practice, when Quebec and Ontario have it all figured out long before the polls close in B.C.

 Here on the North Shore, it could come down to a referendum on the Trans Mountain pipeline, as the squad of local Liberal MPs have been tasked with supporting the pipeline. That includes our estimable Fisheries Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, who will have to ward off a challenge from former North Vancouver MP Andrew Saxton, who, like the proverbial cat, keeps coming back. This time it looks as if Saxton’s trying out a little refugee bashing, just to see how it goes over. When he was nominated in June, he called the Liberals “too permissive” on people walking across the border from the U.S., and then claiming refugee status.

Considering what Americans face on a daily basis from Pennywise the President, I think we should applaud the people trying to escape as the smart ones.

Meanwhile, over in Burnaby North-Seymour, current Liberal incumbent Terry Beech faces Tory Heather Leung, who once headed up something called Parents Voice, which opposed the Burnaby School Board’s policy preventing discrimination against LGBTQ staff and students.

Apparently, she wanted the right to discriminate against LGBTQ students.

In West Van, Liberal MP Pamela Goldsmith-Jones will not face the Conservative, former West Van Chamber of Commerce president Gabrielle Loren. In fact, Pam will face no one. She’s not running again. She’s had enough of flying back and forth to Ottawa, and really, who can blame her? When you represent Sea-to-Sky Country, arguably the most beautiful place on earth, why would you spend five days a week in Ottawa? Of course, it might be different if she were the minister of foreign affairs, as opposed to merely the parliamentary secretary to the minister of foreign affairs, but the Liberals are losing a formidable political asset.

Replacing her is the freshly nominated, 33-year-old fresh face Patrick Weiler, who is already tying himself up in knots trying to support the Trans Mountain pipeline along with Beech and Wilkinson. He refers to climate change as an existential threat and then somehow tries to explain that the pipeline doesn’t add to that threat.

You almost prefer the unalloyed obliviousness of Andrew Scheer and minions like Mr. Saxton who just want the damned pipeline built and while we’re at it, let’s get rid of that carbon tax. If we’re going to create a hell on Earth, let’s get on with it. 

Of course, there’s a bevy of also-rans from the Green, NDP and Peoples Party, so you can always throw your vote away on principle, but that’s not as much fun as thinking it’s going to make a difference if you vote for Saxton/Wilkinson.

Also missing from this election for the first time in a long, long time (29 years): the wry observations of Trevor Lautens, who published his last column for the News on August 23. Trevor, you could at least have waited until you got to 30, which is the traditional journalistic sign-off, and we’ll miss your sly outrage. If only the current crop of North Shore Conservatives were half as smart as their loveable right-of-centre gazetteer.

Journalist and communications consultant Paul Sullivan has been a North Vancouver resident since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of Madonna. p.sullivan@breakthroughpr.com

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