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Municipal elections in the Lower Mainland

Oct 20th, 2026
by Craig.
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Not all of the elections in the Greater Vancouver area went well on Saturday night, but I am delighted that Pete Fry took the mayor’s chair in Vancouver. As I believe I have said before, this is not because I have any particular love for Pete Fry or the Vancouver Green party, but because Canada’s electoral system so favours just two parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives. (I suppose you could throw in a third, the New Democratic Party [NDP], but other than provincially, they have never formed government. It’s like North Americans are genetically engineered to be able to have the mental capacity to choose between only two parties.) I don’t have any particular hate for either party, and in fact I have voted for both. But why are we restricted to just two parties? (It’s almost worse than the United States, if you can imagine that!) Actually, that’s not even true in municipal elections, where parties regularly sprout and flourish for one election, or if they’re lucky a term, and then disappear. Do you really think CentreBC and OneBC will be here in 2030? I doubt it, but besides the fact that neither will get my vote this time around, I actually would like them to be around, to give more British Columbians a voice.

But even then — back to a couple of points ago — municipal parties are associated with the major federal or provincial parties, just without the legal linkage to make them accountable when municipal politicians say something stupid or, in Sim’s case, show up for Remembrance Day ceremonies in casual clothes.

Anyway, I’ll focus on two major elections in the Lower Mainland in the two biggest cities: Vancouver and Surrey.

In Vancouver, as I said, Pete Fry won the mayor’s job. The timing is perfect (almost), because we’re just about to have a provincial election. I wrote before that apparently some people are “confused”, but to me anyone who is “confused” should do the world a favour and remove themselves from the voting pool. I mean, come on. If you can’t keep the candidates in one election separate from the candidates in another election, then you shouldn’t be voting, because our society shouldn’t be relying on people with such low IQs. (I’m going to start sounding like trump, but I certainly don’t mean to.) But I say that it’s almost perfect timing, because I would like nothing more than to see Pete Fry’s election victory result in more people discovering the Green Party (or taking them seriously), and therefore voting for Emily Lowan, who heads the Green Party of British Columbia. Unfortunately, they aren’t running a candidate in my riding, so I’ll have to vote for the NDP here. I know the NDP have been in power for nine years, and I know that that’s beyond the expiry date of most governments (of any stripe), but look at our options: The BC Conservative are in disarray (and are mostly former Christy Clark BC Liberals), CentreBC would normally get my vote if it wasn’t for their preponderance of former BC Liberals, and I can’t give OneBC the time of day, because they would take us back to the Stone Age in an instant. The BC Liberals were in power for way over a decade, and we’re still paying for their mistakes, as anyone who relies on the George Massey Tunnel will tell you.

In Surrey, the whole population seems to have taken a big, long sniff of cocaine right before they voted. I’m sorry, who could have predicated that outcome?! Doug McCallum at least made one good decision, and that was to name his deputy mayor during his acceptance speech, because in one of the interviews with a TV station afterwards, he seriously looked like he was going to have a heart attack. I predict he won’t even complete one year of his term. That’s not a hope, it’s a prediction. That’s all I have to say about the Surrey election, but thank god I don’t live in Surrey anymore.

And, unrelated to BC municipal elections, I hear tonight that Alberta has made the right decision, and one that 90% of the pundits had predicted. I suppose there was value in giving the separatists their moment in the spotlight, but all these separation referenda are tiresome. Let’s wait for a real reason to have another one.

I’ll see you this weekend when British Columbians will decide whether or not to show the incumbents the door. This is looking likely, and Eby will only have himself to blame. Unfortunately, British Columbians won’t take any other parties seriously, to their own peril.

We love you, ALBERTA

Oct 16th, 2026
by Craig.
1 comment

You know, believe it or not, Alberta, we in the rest of the country have heard a lot about your referendum, and not just from the CBC. And, only speaking for myself, we care.

I’m not going to get all hysterical about it, however, and actually claim that you should vote to stay in Canada because, “We love you.” I’m just going to state that with everything else going on in the world, breaking off a significant piece of the country is not a good thing. It wasn’t a good thing a year ago and it won’t be a good thing a year from now.

There has been much talk about comparisons to the Brexit referendum in the UK; that was a disaster, and half of the people who voted for Brexit — i.e., about half of 51.89% (17.4 million people, or 8.7 million of them) would vote to undo what they voted for. Yes, I know this from personal experience, and no, I’m not going to back up those exact numbers with my life, but ask a reasonable number of Brits where they stand, and if you’re lucky they’ll be honest and give you an honest answer.

And I get it, you’ve got the short end of the stick in many ways for years, and that’s not good, but I think things have changed for you. You have a conservative liberal running the country, and he is doing good things for Alberta, and I don’t think that will change at the next election. Might it change at some point in the future? Possibly, but with Carney now giving you some of the slack you haven’t been given in the past, I think it will be difficult for a future prime minister of Canada to turn around at the beginning of the next government’s term and say, “That’s enough, Alberta, get back in your cage.”

Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think things can change that fast.

I’ve read all ten of the questions being asked of you in the referendum on Monday. There’s lots of information about them and how they are worded. I’m not saying that any of you are too stupid to read through them all and decide carefully how you are going to answer them (although I question if anyone could plan to show up on Monday and expect to read and think about all the questions within a reasonable amount of time), but the “no to the nine” mantra is good advice. As Carney has pointed out, this isn’t a poker game where you’re trying to bluff your way to a win, and Smith seems to think that it is, despite the fact that she is even all giggly in Mark Carney’s presence and claims to support staying in Canada. Too many “yes” votes will result in Danielle Smith overplaying her hand with Ottawa, and putting Alberta in a difficult position (or positions) for years to come. You don’t need that, and the rest of us don’t need (or want) that either.

So I’ll end my plea here: Please vote, “No to the nine”, and then vote, “Alberta should remain a province in Canada.” It’s as simple as that. And then, go home and GET INVOLVED in politics in some way. Don’t just sit on your ass and watch American television all day. That’s my point, get involved in some way; don’t just sit there and let the politicians, whether they be federal or provincial or even municipal, tell you what to think. Think for yourself, and take action to support your positions.

Thank-you.

There is going to be an election in British Columbia next month

Sep 23rd, 2026
by Craig.
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Yesterday, Premier David Eby called an election next month. You’d think the world had ended.

I really don’t understand all those people who think we’ll all be so “confused”. If you’re stupid enough to be confused, then you’re probably shouldn’t be qualified to vote. It’s as simple as that.

I can understand the Union of BC Municipalities asking the provincial government to hold off, but that’s all they could do, ask. The UBCM published a press release a few days ago entitled, “UBCM president calls for distinct local and provincial election periods“; that’s nice in principle, even highly desirable, but I don’t think it’s an absolute necessity at this time.

Eby frames, as he is wont to do, this election as being a reaction to trump and his tariffs. It’s a good excuse, but I don’t think he is being 100% accurate. He’s calling this election, now, two years before he is required to, because his main opposition, the Conservative Party of British Columbia, is in complete disarray … although they’ve managed to get their shit together somewhat now that their leader has resigned and the election has been called by accepting back into the party those party MLAs that were expelled in the last couple of months, except the one they attacked personally. (See my previous comments on why I don’t understand how gay people can possibly be conservatives.) And that’s the thing British Columbians need to remember; as long as I’ve been alive — and I assure you, that’s been a lot longer than most of you have — the conservatives have billed themselves as the “experienced” party, the one that has their shit together and the experience to run a government, and their opposition, whoever they are, as being … well, the opposite. But that old trope is an old trope, if you’ll excuse my redundancy. The NDP, in this case, has plenty of experience governing this province. Have they been 100% successful? No, not even close, but have the “conservative” parties, including the British Columbia Liberal Party, been any more successful? Again, not even close.

And that’s also the thing. Whether they’re called the British Columbia Liberal Party (which has nothing to do with the Liberal Party of Canada), the British Columbia Social Credit Party, BC United, One BC, the Conservative Party of British Columbia, CentreBC or any other charlatan party that claims to represent the conservative right, the conservative right is anything but united, and the use of the word (as in Alberta) is simply to try to deceive British Columbians (and Albertans) into believing that they have their shit together when a few minutes of observation will show exactly the opposite. But that’s OK, because British Columbians have quite cleverly found other parties who have done an admirable job of governing this province instead of the Socreds/Liberals/Conservatives/Centre.

Look, I’m not going to vote for the NDP, but I’m certainly not going to vote for the party (BC Conservatives) that showed their true colours when they personally attacked Elenore Sturko, one of their own MLAs! As when John Horgan called an election in 2020, I don’t really see the need to put British Columbians through an election at this time, especially over the objection of the UBCM, but I’m only a voter, so who cares what I think. I’ll obviously show up and do my citizen duty to mark my ballot, and I will, also as usual, do so for one of the lesser-known parties … the Green Party of British Columbia in this case.

The Greens suffer from the same libel as any non-conservative party, being decried as having no experience and not good enough to take on the big job of governing a region/province/country. I’m willing to give them that rope, and yank it back again in four years if necessary. They can’t do any worse than the Liberals/Conservatives have done in the past.

Why the hell does trump come up with a new outrage every day?

Sep 17th, 2026
by Craig.
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On the list today is the latest “hoax” or “scam”. Both are single syllable words to fit into his memory buffer. The whole AI thing is a “hoax” because that (or “scam”) is the only adjective he can think of to describe anything he doesn’t like, such as criticism of his latest thought tangent. If you disagree with him, it’s obviously a “scam” or a “hoax” you’re pushing. Never mind that everyone else having the same thought about the current problems of AI are among the smartest people on the planet, it’s a hoax or a scam.

Nevermind that the Prime Minister of Canada is a trained economist, it’s apparently “laughable” that he’s trying to diversify Canada’s economy, and you’re going to attack the European Union if Carney so much as thinks about the possibility of maybe allying Canada with the EU.

You’re just a joke, donald trump, and America is yesterday’s ally. The fact that you have thousands of supporters telling you that you are wearing clothes is not proof that I am wrong, just that you have been successful at attracting so many stupid people; it’s kinda like the flies-to-shit analogy.

Remembering when Canada stood by the United States of America … one of many times, except for the time we burned the White House

Sep 13th, 2026
by Craig.
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All day yesterday (actually, the day before yesterday in this blog’s time zone now), the world’s (or at least the Western World’s, or at least the North American) airwaves were full of retrospectives about September 11th, 2001 … 25 years ago.

In case you were under a rock that day, this was the day on which the United States of America suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history. Just under 3000 died that day (including Canadians and many other nationalities), and thousands of others have died since. Apparently, Howard Lutnick’s brother died that day. One can only assume that he must have believed the ludicrous and unproven assertion that the hijackers entered the United States via the Canadian border, as he clearly has a hate on for Canada, which he manifests through his support of donald trump’s juvenile tariffs on Canadian goods, and his trolling. One can only wonder why; there is no logical reason.

Former Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien gave an excellent speech in Gander. He may have been talking generally, but he certainly made some pointed references to the current troubles between Canada and the United States in front of the very unpopular American ambassador, Pete Hoekstra. If Hoekstra had been listening and paying attention, he might have actually understood what Chrétien was saying to him and his boss, but subtlety is lost on Americans.

Anyway, it is not lost on me, as someone who was alive and in the aviation business in 2001 when this happened. I wasn’t flight crew, at that time, but my then-wife worked for Canadian Airlines at the time, and a friend of mine (who would later run for council in the City of Richmond, the city in which Vancouver International Airport is located, was involved with finding sleeping accommodations for the American travellers whose planes were denied entry to the United States, and who were stuck in Vancouver as a result. As it turns out, we didn’t have any space in our house at the time, but many others found beds.

But the point is, between Vancouver and Gander, and in many places in between, Canadians helped out our American friends on those terrible days, without pause for thought. And I know that, even today, while trump thinks of every which way to criticise Canada and blame us for all the troubles in his own country, we would do the same again, even knowing that. Because we also know that trump is unbalanced and only in power temporarily, and any thinking “principal officers of the executive departments” would invoke their 25th Amendment to their Constitution and remove him from power if they were, as I said about their ambassador, “listening and paying attention”, but only about half the citizens of the United States are lucid enough to understand the dangers into which trump puts them, and himself. So yes, we will again help our American friends if they need us in an hour of need, but we’ll only do so grudgingly, keeping in mind that since the last time, we have been mightily slighted.

That’s what you should think about, trump, as you burn every bridge to which you have access. And that’s what you should think about, Americans, as you go to the polls this November.

Here we go again. *sigh*

Sep 2nd, 2026
by Craig.
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Oh my god, you people (donald trump and co.) are dumb as posts. I don’t even know why I’m addressing you directly, but you waste your presidential time trolling social media, instead of doing more presidential things, like figuring out how to extract yourself from the dumb war that you started with Iran. It has turned into a “forever war”, and a foreign one at that.

  • You purposely pushed Canada, and then ended the trade talks because you apparently don’t know anything about “the art of the deal”.
  • You then posted a bunch of juvenile memes about Canada.
  • You then renamed your side of Lake Ontario to Lake America.
  • Your Trade Secretary then made a hilarious (not!) joke about Canada sicking two old civilian submarines on you. They don’t even exist any more; so much for your intelligence.
  • Your Defence (or War) Secretary then made a joke at the expense of two minor (as in children) civilian Army cadets. Again, so much for your intelligence.
  • Then one of your admirals prevaricated when asked if he’d obey an order to attack Canada.

Do you remember a time when vladimir putin told the whole world, as he massed his troops on the border of Ukraine, that they were exaggerating and prevaricating when they accused him of preparing to invade Ukraine? I don’t even think you need to read anything to know that; it’s common knowledge among anyone who was alive and lucid in 2022.

Well, we and our minor cadets await your invasion. If you think Red Dawn from 1984 was just a fictional film, you’re about to discover the reality.

I support Mark Carney

Aug 22nd, 2026
by Craig.
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The United States has moved the goalposts and imposed back-breaking tariffs on Canada. And Mark Carney has responded as only Canada can really do.

And I, as a Canadian, can only really support him.

As I’ve said before, I’m still glad I voted for him. Under any other leadership, we’d have become the 51st State by now, and god knows I don’t want American police patrolling our streets.

We need to wash our hands of America. Sure, we share a relatively small part of this continent with them, and it makes sense to trade with them because they’re “right there” and we can drive across the border, but land borders in the 21st century are meaningless, especially in light of the fact that donald trump claims to have a “special relationship” with Kim Jong Un and other “strong man” dictators. And Americans think that is just OK because they don’t see where it leads. Maybe I’m an old thinker, but clearly trump is suffering from the same malady as his ideas are from the 1930s.

Carney has the country in mind as he leads this country, not party politics, and that’s why he still has my support.

Captain Canada

Aug 9th, 2026
by Craig.
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I’ve been meaning to write about Doug Ford for months. He is the personification of Captain Canada these days. I completely support his stand against America in this American-induced trade war. I won’t even drink Crown Royal anymore.

I also support Mark Carney‘s approach to how he’s handling America, although with some reservations. This is particularly in opposition to how Pierre Poilievre is suggesting Mark Carney should be handling it, and how he would undoubtedly be handling it if he were prime minister. This is one of the reasons I didn’t vote for him or his party in the last election. Let us know when you come up with a workable idea, Poilievre, because nothing you’ve come up with in the last couple of years has been workable. This might be because Poilievre has never worked in the real world for a day in his life; he’s just a politician through and through, and will never amount to anything in his life.

Now with the trade negotiations ongoing with the Americans there’s talk that we’ll make yet more concessions to them, supposedly even with respect to allowing American booze back on the shelves. I’m not sure how they will work, given booze is a provincial responsibility, but I obviously don’t want to be clapping Ford on the back the back after the ban is lifted, hence my writing about him now.

I just hope I don’t have to eat my words in a week.

Americans are whiners

Jul 17th, 2026
by Craig.
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A couple of things stood out for me in Canadian/American news today.

One is the number of high-level whiners there are in the States:

  • John Moolenaar,
  • Bill Huizenga,
  • Tim Walberg,
  • Tom Barrett,
  • donald trump,
  • Lisa McClain,
  • Bernie Moreno,
  • John James, and
  • Jack Bergman.

These are nine Republican whiners … I mean … members of the House of Representatives, a president and a senator, who have apparently complained before: “This is the third consecutive year we have had to write to Canadian officials about a crisis that Canada has the tools to prevent and has chosen not to.” Yup, we Canadians are a lazy bunch, sitting around doing nothing while our world burns around us. I mean, why interrupt our summer suntanning when the forest next to us is burning?

If you’re aghast at my question and already have a list of fifty things you can think of doing, congratulations, and welcome to the human race. We aren’t a bunch of uneducated and helpless monkeys up here, waiting for an all-knowing American white knight to show up. This is called a classic example of how the Americans politicise everything, and how they think that they can do a better job of everything, like Katie Miller, wife of Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff, who is still on that tired bandwagon of making Greenland and Canada the “51st [and 52nd] state[s].” No thank you Katie, we’re good. Mr. Miller, it’s nice that you can be a good conservative husband and keep your wife at home to cook meals, but at least give her a better pastime than operating a Twitter account. You must have missed the “seen and not heard” part of your male-domination class, but I guess the class bullies had you in the toilets for your daily hairwashing … when you had hair. Better luck in your next life with a wife who is not so dense.

Actually, one of the nine is a senator from Ohio, who is going to “be introducing a bill next week to sanction Canada and the responsible Canadian government officials for this atrocity.” Wow. I’m shaking in my boots. How would you compare killing tens of thousands of your citizens (in Iran) to a couple of out of control wildfires? Are both atrocities? Have you any sense of proportion?!

I could express my outrage even further, by taking apart the petty points you and others make, but your ignorance speaks for itself. I mean, you “will look elsewhere, and act on our own”? Huh? You will look elsewhere for what? The lumber and cars and steel you don’t need from Canada? And you’ll act on your own? To extinguish the fires in your own back yard? Or are you going to fly up here and show us how the job is done? Because, by all means, head on up here and show us how it’s done, because that will leave us more money to fund the aircraft that we already use for the job we’re not doing. You and Smokey the Bear already do such an excellent job in your own back yard preventing fires from even thinking of starting. Oh, and maybe tell donny that he should consider pumping some money into one of those communist endeavors like the EPA.

The narrow-minded ignorance of some Americans is breathtaking sometimes. Manitoba premier Wab Kinew said it well last year: “These are attention-seekers who can’t come up with a good idea on health care or on making life more affordable. So they’re playing games with something that’s very serious,” also referring to their “timber tantrum”.

There’s another story I want to highlight out of the States, but this will do for now.

Trump does something good for a change

Jul 8th, 2026
by Craig.
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Wow, I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I suppose when even the worst person you know in the modern world does something good, ya gotta recognise them for it. Of course, with trump this could change in five minutes when another lonely thought materialises in his grey matter, so check back tomorrow.

But today trump said that he would allow the Ukrainians to build their own Patriot Missiles. I don’t know how this would work, given Russia can rain fire and fury on any square centimetre of Ukraine, but I would imagine that Ukraine will build their missiles in a third country. And I believe they will start quicker than anyone realises, and they will churn them out 24/7, faster than even Rayethon churns them out from the safety of American soil. That’s not a criticism of Rayethon, just a recognition of the fact that when your country is in an existential crisis, it’s amazing what you can do.

So I don’t know how many weeks or months it will take for Ukraine to start churning out “made in Ukraine” missiles, but the day they do, Russia better watch their back (and their front) because there will be no excuse for Ukraine any more. They will be able to slice through Russia’s clear manpower advantage in ways that will make the Russians afraid to step into the meat machine that they have created.

Canada buys European subs

I’m delighted to see that Carney has chosen to buy European-made subs. They’re not a panacea for all ills, but they are a panacea for all things American. I hope he makes the choice to buy Swedish Gripen fighter jets as well instead of the American F-35s. Everything I’ve read about the F-35s is that they’re a great piece of kit, but getting into bed with the Americans in a bad long-term move as we’ve found out.

Americans aren’t bad people, they’re just poorly led

I’ve also read (speaking of things trump can’t do) that we should be nicer to Americans. Why? I don’t think we should attack them today — one doesn’t have to attack a new neighbour — but they’re not being nice to us, so why should we be nice to them? The majority of their population voted for him, and that says a lot. So let America have a hissy fit for four years, and then see where they are when they’re done with trump in 2029. If their new leader in 2029 comes to their senses and starts being nice to us again, then we’re 90% of the way to being there to pick up where we left off. But we won’t make the same mistake we made in the past, where we thought we were inseparable friends. Nope, been there, done that, not doing it again.

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