Boy, did I need the Polar Bear Swim this year. I'm proud to say this is my fifth year dipping into Nexen beach and there's no better way to forget reality and clear the post holiday fog than a quick freezing dip. Sadly, it's only temporary and all too soon, everything comes crashing back.
One holiday image I'm desperately trying to shake is our mayor Ian Sutherland on the front page of the Christmas paper dressed up as George W Bush. I'm almost scared to ask why. Was it booze or blackmail? Did he lose a bet?
That staggering lack of judgment was not to be outdone, however, as only two pages later, failed conservative John Weston chose to spread goodwill cheer with vicious attack ads. He actually chose to spend hundreds of dollars so when we opened the Christmas paper we saw his grimace, not wishing season's greetings, but rather spewing venomous hatred at our (for better or worse) elected representative.
My favorite quote? "Mr. Harper practices integrity and accountability." Well, people in grass houses shouldn't throw goats. And that's one dirty, bloated goat you have there Mr. Weston.
Now, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're simply misinformed rather than ignorant. Otherwise you'd know that your Conservative government appointed an unelected person as a minister. And not just any ministry, but the second largest ministry in Canada! The best part? Because he was never elected, he's not allowed into the House of Commons so the people can never question him. Accountability that young man!
But in Squamish we've come to expect this sort of inappropriate sour-grape ranting from Mr. Weston. What hurts most is I expected better from our Mayor.
You see, one week after he dressed as the world's most vilified terrorist, the mayor gladly boasts in an interview that he's using John Weston to take our issues to Ottawa. Hello? Does no one know what the hell "unelected" means? How insane is it that our mayor happily admits using a person his community actually voted quite strongly against, to be our conduit to the federal government?
(To be fair, Ian was also proud to have backroom dealings with an unelected Blair Wilson in the past. Granted, Blair had more 'local' votes than his Conservative counterpart, but that still doesn't make me feel any better.)
Again, I fully expect this sort of contempt of democracy from the federal Conservatives - after all, here's a party who thinks George Bush and Brian Mulroney are the best role models for governing - but our own mayor? Yes, our MP is under investigation (something that's all too common in both the Conservative and Liberal parties) but until he is found guilty of something he's still our representative.
On the bright side, if that's the way they're going to play, 2008 is going to be a good year for editorial writers. I can only hope it's going to be a good year for Squamish as well.
