EDITORIAL – The election is over, now it’s time to get back to reality
Justin Trudeau gives his victory speech. (Image: Screenshot, CBC)
An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.
WELL, ONCE AGAIN B.C. got left out. Despite what the pundits said, the election was pretty well over by the time our polls closed.
And, as the pollsters predicted, Canada chose to give the spectacularly imperfect Justin Trudeau another chance rather than take a chance on Andrew Scheer and the Conservatives.
McLeod after her win. (Image: Screenshot, CFJC-TV)
Nevertheless, Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo stayed True Blue with incumbent Cathy McLeod, who prevailed over Terry Lake.
All the talk now is about the need for the Liberals to take a more humble approach to governing. Finding common ground with the NDP and the Greens will take some careful and adept maneuvering, something Trudeau hasn’t displayed a lot of during the past four years.
But maybe it’s time for a little good will all around in the House of Commons, including the Conservatives — as tempted as they’ll be to obstruct.
Let me give an example of what I mean. In the dying days of the campaign, with everybody getting desperate at the thought of a minority government, Scheer baldly stated that Trudeau was “openly discussing” a coalition government with the NDP.
That was an absolute fib, since Trudeau carefully avoided the coalition word whenever the subject came up.
This misrepresentation was extended into the Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo riding, with McLeod issuing a press release Saturday demanding to know if Trudeau would cancel the Trans Mountain pipeline “just to gain the NDP’s support and stay in power.”
Only Andrew Scheer could be trusted to build the TMX, she said.
That, too, was a crock. Nobody — not the NDP, the Greens, certainly not the Bloc and not even the Conservatives — is going to want to rush into another election.
The Trans Mountain expansion is going ahead. The election is over. Time to get back to reality.
Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and newspaper editor. He writes five commentaries a week for CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
in reality the main stream media has whipped-up an unneeded and unhealthy frenzy in the months leading up to the election. Otherwise marginal stories have evolved into a gong show of bizarre falsities regarding pressing environmental issues, carbon tax et al. According to the right-of-center there was absolutely nothing this past liberal government has done regardless of eminent opinions and positive statistical evidence. The media IS the enemy…
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The reality is the leaders, with one notable exception, in their attacks and dirt digging, gave all the absent young people further reason to avoid the polling booth and any consideration of politics. If this keeps up, when I am in my eighties, I will be with them at the barricades, cane in hand and pike pole in the other. We are on a steady descent to the level of things south of the border, down crazy way.
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Another short-sighted result from our partisan, confrontational oriented, 4 year govt. system.
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It might be that the realities of today are not the realities of yesterday.
We are about to have a Prime Minister whose party did not win the popular vote in the election.
We now have a country that is even more divided. The needs of the western Provinces will play second fiddle to the whims of one of the parties that has no seats in Parliament from either of the parties liable to support the minority government. It might be a tough pill for Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta to swallow when talk of separation ramps up in Quebec.
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