BC Politics

Well this weekend was quite interesting for the politics of British Columbia. Seems our Premier enjoyed his holidays a bit much, and in the process of destressing from the job in Maui has received a DUI charge. I typically try to stay out of politics since much like lawyers, I could do without them most of the time. BC politics is really bad as mud slinging is the number one past time, and we get very little done here because of it. Government crawls as scandal after scandal continues to plague anyone who takes office.

Now, I don't want to dilute the gravity of the charge. It was quite STUPID to get behind the wheel of a car after drinking in excess of ATLEAST 10 oz. of alcohol, but it does not deserve the amount of public scrutiny that it seems to be getting right now. He is human. We want to put politicians in a higher standard than ourselves, and fail to see the human side of what is going on when they aren't. Lets be clear about this, alcoholism is a form of addiction. He should be helped... not hindered. I couldn't believe the blasphamy of Moe Sahoda complaining that Gordon should step down just like Gordon demanded members of the NDP to do when the Liberals were in opposition. How pathetic! Gordon didn't LIE about it. Nor did he try to HIDE it. He came out and apologized immediately. I still haven't heard an apology from the NDP for the conflict of interest issues, the lies and the deceit.

Lets face it. People hate our premier right now because he made hard decisions that affect the economy in a negative way... temporarily. After the YEARS the NDP put us in the hole, its going to take time to get out of it. It has to get worse, before it can get better. And with this scandal that is going to make it tougher still.

Should Gordon resign? I don't know. Personally I don't think so. I think he should take some time off and investigate if he is an alcoholic and get some help. His family needs councilling and he needs time to reflect on the stupidity of his actions. I will bet he will be harder on himself than any of us could .... constructively.

But let me be clear. The idiocy of reporting about his father being an alcoholic and killing himself was not something to be brought up. If Gordon wanted to explain it, that is his right. Not the media to blanket it (positively OR negatively) when the real question at hand should be, "Will he still be a good leader?". Problem is that question can't be asked since many people already have a disgust for his leadership before this happened. I am disappointed in his lack of good judgement here, and it has me questioning his judgement as a leader. However this is not a totalitarian regime. It is not Gordon Campbell's government. It is our government, currently ran be the liberals. And for that I do believe it can be lead better than the NDP party can run it. And I think Gordon can recover from this, and be the leader of that party, for my government. So get off his back unless you are willing to contribute.

I met the man and had a chance to have a social drink with him when we were on the Team Canada trip to the USA last year. I have a lot of respect for his position in trying to run the government like a business, and can understand how unpopular that makes him. As a business owner myself I know how hard decisions are easily viewed as wrong when the "employees" don't like the direction. Of course under the same vein these same people are easy to criticize, but don't seem to have reasonable answers to fix the problems. Typical for people not in leadership to do. Back from that tangent though, if this was the CEO of Ballard we wouldn't be chanting for his resignation? No. So why do it to our premier?

All in all, as normal BC politics go this will haunt Gordon for the rest of his term. Chances of him running again will be quite hard, and if he wants to truely turn this government around he will have to step aside at the next election to allow someone else to carry the ball. What will really suck here is if this incident ruins the liberal's chance for re-election and have the NDP come back into power and destroy all the work that is trying to be done right now. The liberals need a chance to complete their work before we will see if the government and our economy can recover in a positive manner. If they lose that chance, god help us all. It will just spiral down to hell in a handbasket. *sigh*

Either way, its not the government that will turn around the economy. It is business. And on that note... I need to get back to work to continue to build mine. TTYL.