We hate to even say the word so soon after the election of Donald Trump down south.
But, yes, there’s an election looming in B.C.
Some might say, “But that’s in 2017 – that’s a long ways off.”Actually, it’s just around the corner.
B.C. will go to the polls on May 9, 2017. You might as well eliminate the months of December and January in terms of voter interest by the average Joe or Josephine. From here until Christmas no one seems to pay attention to anything other than holiday plans, shopping, recipes, cookies, Santa suits for their dogs, more cookies and, of course, wondering whether it will snow. And January – January seems to be mostly a month filled with folks trying to figure out if they can afford a week in Mexico and why they spent so much on Christmas.
So that really leaves just a little over three solid months – February, March and April – to squeeze in a whole lot of intense campaigning before voting day.
You would think three months is a long time to listen to candidates selling you on their party and policies. But it’s not.
By the time one candidate manages to tell us for the 100th time that B.C. is a great place with a lot of opportunity for businesses, students and families, and the opposing candidate tells us for the 100th time that it’s a terrible place for children, students, poor folks, sick folks and the elderly, it’s time to vote.
We only hope that we can squeeze in some reality/fact checks, opinions from people who are not campaign ringers and, hopefully, some folks with real questions before the ballots close.
But it will be a challenge.
Politicians who may think they have a safer seat will consider avoiding us, or avoiding straight answers, and those who think they do need some media attention will return our calls, hopefully with straight answers.
Again, much as we hate to refer to the election down south, one sobering fact is that 46.6 per cent of U.S. voters didn’t even bother to cast their ballots. Hillary Clinton got 25.6 per cent, Donald Trump, 25.5 per cent and Gary Johnson, 1.7 per cent.
In our last B.C. election, 43 per cent of B.C. voters didn’t cast their ballots.
That’s not good.
Oh, and for those who may have forgotten – the NDP was favoured to win by pundits and polls in 2013.
We suspect those numbers have not been lost in the backrooms of both party headquarters as they ponder the next five months.
