Thoughts on BC Politics and More

W hat does 2024 hold for Canadians? There is the economy. For most of us, that means, "Do I have a job?" and "Does it pay enough?". Seniors on fixed incomes struggle with rising costs. There is tax. We pay a lot of it. We despair as we know our government does not wisely and fairly manage our tax dollars. Young people at the stage of leaving home don't imagine owning a home or having a family, as did their parents' generation, because we have entered the new economy of 2024 and things don't seem to point that way anymore. Economically, the New Year means understanding new, emerging financial trends. Since the Bank of Canada's interest rate acts like a thermostat for how hot the economy and inflation run, the current 5% central rate is going to stay around for quite a while to moderate the consequences of the government's bad spending habits. Many Canadians will be required to renew their mortgages in 2024 at higher interest ...

By John Twigg I've false-started on a new commentary several times this week and on Friday afternoon I was looking forward to an open church service tonight in Campbell River's beautiful Foreshore Park, that meant this wasn’t going to be a lengthy column.  Well actually it did become longish!  :) Part of my problem is that there's still so much going on nowadays that one simply cannot keep track of it all, let alone make some sense of it that might be helpful to readers. A prime example was President Donald Trump's nomination acceptance speech Thursday evening, and indeed the whole show that he and the Republican Party put on, which whether or not you like him or them you must admit was amazingly professional, even masterful. Obviously, the Donald has learned the media game too, as with real estate, and now on November 3rd we'll see how he has done again in American politics. In a way it's too early to predict because he and the Democratic Party's ...

By John Twigg Have you ever seen such machinations by politicians as we've seen in recent weeks? It seems COVID-19 is skewing everything from the U.S. Presidential election campaign (arguably the most important uncertainty now facing the world) to school class sizes here in B.C. (with B.C. teachers and their union again making a renewed bid for fewer students). In the U.S. we just saw Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden applauded merely for making it through a reading of a text obviously written for him without a verbal stumble or mental lapse like the ones that have plagued him in recent weeks. It's not just that Biden is 77 years old, it's that he's obviously verging on senility and yet the Democrat bosses are pushing him forward anyway, perhaps reflecting their belief that anyone would be better than radical populist Republic Donald Trump . Why? Maybe they realize that if Biden was to win and then soon after step aside it would elevate the Democrats' ul...