The Alberta election: some random thoughts

1    How about that election, eh?
It was certainly one for the record books, like the Rae win in Ontario in 1990, but much more decisive: all the polls said NDP majority, Conservatives running as far back as 3rd, but almost nobody believed something that politically improbable could happen.
Until it did.
Now, of course, the result appears kind of obvious: this is the province that elected mayors Naheed Nenshi and Don Iveson, the one that elected the most “progressive” of Progressive Conservatives, Alison Redford, when the polls all said that scary Wildrose was sure to win the 2012 election.
So it turns out all that really happened was that Jim Prentice appeared to be both kind of uncharismatic and in the pocket of the oil industry. And Rachel Notley, who almost nobody knew before the campaign, appeared, by contrast, to be kind of charismatic, straight-talking, and progressive, but in a business-friendly way. Really, not scary-NDP at all.

Isn't it delightfully satisfying when political hubris is punished so completely?


2    Many pundits have identified Prentice's “look in the mirror” remark, assigning responsibility for Alberta's current economy to Alberta voters, as deeply offensive, and one of the reasons he and his party were crushed. Although it's hard for an outsider like me to see how he's wrong, he apparently didn't help himself when he added: “We all want to blame somebody for the circumstances that we are in. But the bottom line is we’ve had the highest cost and the best public services in the country, and we haven’t built, basically, a revenue model that sustains them.”
Prentice could hardly say, “We've been pandering to those of you who want first-class services but wanted to pretend they were free for the last 43 years”, but that's what the Alberta economy and political system look like to those of us in the neighbouring provinces.
I'm not convinced Notley's NDP will have an answer. In Canada we're all deeply committed to magical thinking where taxes are concerned. We don't want to pay them, but we insist on the services. The NDP is not better than other parties in this regard: we still believe that taxing the rich and corporations is the solution, when that is, at best, only a small part of it.
Previous Alberta governments could have done like Norway, but voters chose instead not to pay sales tax.
I doubt if Notley's NDP will take that on.


3    It is an article of faith in NDP circles that assembling a database of sympathetic electors and then organizing them to get to the polls is the path to success, and undoubtedly that groundwork is part of it. But in the Alberta election that territory belonged to the PC's, who also happened to have most of the money.
We can probably conclude from this, and the last federal election in Quebec, that sometimes the leader and the conventional wisdom of the day is all that really matters.
Further evidence: the last provincial election in BC, when Christy Clark, a charismatic, photogenic lightweight, beat  Adrian Dix, a serious, thoughtful pro, on style points and with a whisper campaign that impugned his morality. The fact that she promised to deliver the wonders of the Ali Baba cave didn't hurt, but I doubt if it tipped the balance.
We could easily have lost North Island, and would have, in spite of far superior organization and enough money, had it not been for Claire's popularity on the islands, where she, as the MLA, had been regularly and where the Liberal candidate hadn't bothered to visit.


4    What kind of premier will Rachel Notley be?
Above all, I suspect, she will be pragmatic. You don't overcome 43 years of PC government by challenging the electorate's fundamental assumptions, at least, not all in one go.
She'll have her work cut out just to deal with the well-funded campaign to undermine her government's legitimacy that is undoubtedly in the offing, and she should expect the federal Conservatives, the ones that offered their congratulations today, to do everything they can to sabotage her success.
I imagine she'll be guided by the examples of Roy Romanow, Alan Blakeney, Gary Doer and Greg Selinger, rather than those of Dave Barrett and Mike Harcourt...
She certainly won't be a socialist premier.

And finally, can we NDPers please abandon the canard that the NDP has to revert to it's “socialist roots” in order to win? That's so clearly not the case!

Duffy, drugs, and redundancy

ONE:

I never liked Mike Duffy.

And when, at CTV, he became an obese, hale-fellow-well-met caricature of “The Parliamentary Reporter”, whose only journalistic attribute was that he could gain access to any politician he wanted in return for faithfully reporting the spin of the day, “loathing” is perhaps not too strong a word for the quality of my admiration.

I do believe I liked him even less than I like the odious Rex Murphy today.

So Stephen Harper appointing him to the Canadian Senate merely confirmed what I already knew about Harper and his government.

Patrick Brazeau? Pamela Wallin? Mere icing on that cake.

Subsequently, when Duffy et al were caught with their faces fully submerged in the trough, apparently (if reports are to be believed) some people were astonished that Duffy and Harper took advantage of the appointment. Apparently no one could have foreseen that the Senate of Canada would be exploited to satisfy the political desires of the Harper government.

Seriously? Did they think Duffy was being recognized for his outstanding journalism? Did Duffy accept the appointment because of any ambition to subject the laws passed by the House to “sober second thought”? Did someone have to point out the trough to Mr Duffy, and did anyone think it necessary to warn him against immersing himself too deeply?

Of course not. Duffy did exactly what was expected: he raised tons of money for the Conservative Party, spoke to partisans whenever asked, and basked in the limelight and the love. Almost all of it on the Senate's dime, and while making sure that his income was commensurate with his new status.

Like most Canadians, I cheered when Duffy and Co. were outed as the porkers they are, and followed the subsequent political farce, the one that culminated in bribery and the self-serving justice imposed by their fellow Senators, closely.

But I'm mostly over that now. I'm pretty sure almost none of this will stick to Harper by the time there's an election on the line, and I'm pretty sure the Canadian electorate is already feeling even more cynical about politicians. The Senate, which for procedural reasons cannot be abolished, will be discredited even further. 

I expect this cynicism suits the present government, the one that brought in and passed the "Fair Elections Act" (Bill C23, which actually only makes it harder for disadvantaged people to vote) just fine.

None of this is good news for the 60% of Canadians who do not support the Harper government. I wish I saw any indication that the combined opposition was actually serious about taking control, changing government, and cleaning up the mess.

TWO:

Yesterday the CBC did an expose, revealing that too often your local drug store carries expired drugs on its shelves:

After Shoppers Drug Mart recalled one lot of Alesse 21 birth control pills that expired in September 2014 and were sold to about 100 women, a Richmond, B.C., resident sent CBC News photos of a newly purchased non-prescription allergy medication stamped with an expiry date of August 2014. A CBC producer found more on the shelf at the same store.

When CBC News checked a dozen drug stores from three chains in Toronto, journalists found a diabetic nutritional supplement that expired last October, other past due allergy medications, an expired sleep medication and a number of products that expire this month.

OK; that's not good. I think we can safely assume that expired drugs are less effective than they are meant to be, and that's bad. But they're not toxic, and they do contain active ingredients.

On those same shelves one can find homeopathic nostrums, “approved” by Health Canada:

Health Canada is responsible for ensuring that remedies sold to the public are both safe and effective. In recent years, however, Health Canada has allowed various natural health products to enter the market without requiring rigorous proof of effectiveness. Indeed, there are many remedies and homeopathic preparations currently licensed for sale that do not contain any of the allegedly active ingredient. A number of these are hom­eo­pathic “nosodes.”

…

Health Canada continues to assure Canadians that it tests products for safety and efficacy before allowing them to enter the market. All approved homeopathic products are given a DIN-HM number.

And there's more: “Bogus Children’s Remedy Invented by CBC Marketplace Approved by Health Canada” is the headline of a story which pretty much sums up the contents. Follow the URL for the story.

Personally, those stories strike me as a lot more to be really concerned about.

Just saying.

THREE:

There's a war memorial in Ottawa, located just outside the front doors of the Parliament Building.

After someone was seen urinating on it a few years ago, the Conservatives thought it would be a good idea to put a guard there.

So there were two ceremonial guards there when a nutter with a rifle decided to make a statement at Canada's Parliament, and the first thing that nutter did on his way into the building was shoot at both, and kill one.

The thing is, those guards, as is the norm, were armed. They just didn't have any ammunition.

And that seems fine, if you're only protecting the War Memorial from urinators.

So, after Cpl Nathan Cirillo was killed, did the braintrust at the Parliament Buildings decide to provide the guards with ammunition, so they could actually guard the war memorial?

Well no: they provided police protection for the guards at a cost of $425,000/ year.

Frankly, that seems more than a little counter-intuitive.

Not to mention redundant.

Bill C51

19 February, 2015

The Hon Stephen Harper,
Office of the Prime Minister

80 Wellington Street

Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2


Dear Sir,

I am deeply worried that Bill C51, currently before Parliament, goes well beyond the intentions stated by the government.
I refer you to the articles by a number of very knowledgeable people, including legal and parliamentary experts, who have made this point before me.
And I am old enough to remember the RCMP, acting under similarly-vague authorization to that envisioned by this bill, illegally burning down a Quebec barn belonging to a relative of an FLQ member.
I thought we had learned from that experience.
It is also very worrying that there appears to be no effective oversight of the security agencies which would be empowered by this legislation.
I trust appropriate amendment will be made before passage to correct this legislation, and to render it acceptable in a fully-democratic society.

Yours very sincerely,



copy: MP John Duncan
121 East Block
House of Commons
Ottawa ON K1A 0A6

On Just Havelaar, by Mike Rooksby

Mike Rooksby, initially my father's Oak Bay High School colleague and subsequently his long-term friend, wrote the following appreciation in reaction to his death on December 13, 2014, aged 99: 

 

Justus, my ancient friend

It’s the first Oak Bay staff meeting in 1969 and he, along with other teachers new to the school, has been introduced. He is an interesting-looking man, tall and thin with an unusual accent that I can’t quite place; my accent is also commented upon regularly so I feel free to ask him about it. Dutch, my goodness, and teaching English?? On subsequent occasions, at staff meetings or elsewhere, there was always something interesting going on behind those eyes and his opinions on educational matters were often quite different from mine. And yet I did not feel any animosity, rather returned interest, and soon I started to listen more carefully to this man. I started to realise that the teaching of Math and that of English were very different matters, different skills for both students and teachers, and also that my approach to things in general was not the only valid one. He was patient, but resilient and even insistent; in spite of the 24-year difference in our ages, we discovered other mutual interests in woodwork and the natural world and, on going to visit him at his house, I made the acquaintance of the remarkable woman who was his wife. Once, while I was there, we used a canoe, I think, to tow a large log into the channel from Portage inlet that was behind the house, for cutting into firewood. He was also proud of the prodigious rhubarb that grew where the septic field outlet emptied, and showed off the huge jade plant that flowered and that had come with them from Terrace. Later, with my family, we would go on walks in Thetis Lake Park or by Esquimalt lagoon, and Hanneke would make her delicious mushrooms-in-sauce-on-toast to warm us up, a concoction I have sometimes tried to make but never replicated.

There would always be a project on the go, or plans for one; over the years I learned a myriad of skills, from the need for SHARP tools (that was a tough lesson where his patience wore thin because of my incompetence) to the tried and true ‘mend and make do’ philosophy which extended to all aspects of his practical life ( later there was the ‘famous’ replacement of a broken metal part of a Felco Pruner with an oak one; it did not last long, but the very idea I found amazing) . He impressed upon me the importance of using hand tools respectfully, of drawing out a plan beforehand (though later in his woodworking life that particular aspect appeared to take a back seat, or sometimes no seat at all). He taught me about joints and glues, grain and texture and numerous techniques which were of interest even when I couldn’t conceive of ever using them. His practicality, however, did not extend to cars, of which there were a number of highly doubtful choices that came to unseemly ends, but he was not interested in them, instead getting annoyed if they did not work. There was one occasion when he needed to borrow my TR4A sports car to go home for something forgotten, I think, and he phoned me in a panic because he could not get the handbrake off. It was a special kind called a ‘racing’ handbrake, for which the end knob that is generally pushed in to release it worked in reverse mode, so that to release it all you had to do was pull on the handle; the knob was pushed in when you wanted it ‘on’. He told me many times that it was a “stupid” design!

Over the years he shared with me many stories from his early days as well as later ones, always belittling his own contributions and extolling Hanneke’s; the stories about coming to Terrace by train, of his early jobs, of times without a job, of their transfer to Vancouver Island, Hornby, UVic and then Kingham Place are all recounted in his memoirs, but I remember being so impressed at how he and Hanneke could be so very different in so many ways, and yet still be absolutely devoted to each other. There was never the slightest doubt as to the solidity of their marriage and the pride they took in each other and their family. It is hard to imagine the courage it took to be married and start a family under those so difficult times of war and post-war Holland, and then to take their family to a far-off country with no prospect of returning for a long time. He told me that the two of them had  promised each other that, once they were in Canada, they would speak only English to each other so as to assimilate more quickly and learn the nuances of the language, and indeed I never heard them speaking Dutch unless on the phone to their relatives in Holland. 

And then there was the laughter. Always there was this effort on both our parts to get each other’s goat, resulting in all kinds of jokes and loudness that I think both our wives found somewhat raucous and uncouth. His views on things were always well-articulated and rational so it was sometimes hard to find an angle to argue, but we generally found conversation a wonderful fresh-air experience and it all helped me find my own ‘voice’ on important matters. And that is the crux of what the real influence of Justus on me was: he forced me to think about what I said before I said it, to question every assumption that I was making and to examine all I said for flawed reason. It was, too, always a joyful and exhilarating experience, often ending with trivial issues or discussions about woodworking or boats or music. He so enjoyed ‘intellectual’ banter.

You, to whom I am writing this, know him better than I, of course, so I am unlikely to bring anything new to your knowledge. I thought, however, that you might like to hear what an ‘outsider’ had to say; I can barely scratch the surface of who he was, only express what he meant to me and to Susie and my children. It was he who told me about the piece of property along Piercy Road that we eventually bought, that proved such a wonderful place for us and our kids for holidays. It was he who got me going to the discussions about ‘left’ and ‘right’ schools in Victoria and made me think about elementary schooling. It was he (and Hanneke, of course) who showed many people what standing up for their beliefs meant to him in all kinds of situations (not just Clayaquot and Strathcona). But it was all melded into a mix of humour, genuine liking for each other and for the battles of the mind, and a trust that was paramount to all his dealings with everyone he knew. He probably knew neither how to lie, nor even contemplate it. 

He had no time for sport of any kind, nor for other ‘games’. He loved classical music and he played his flute with delight even if his skills were not those of his beloved brother Charles. I can recall many times picking him up from their Denman house in the morning for our walk with the dog, having to pull him out of the cabin at the bottom of the garden from his practice. 

In the last phase of his life he was, of course, gradually declining in many ways, and yet in spite of Michelle’s more recent arrival in my life he always - till the end - remembered her name and who she was and never made a mistake; he always reminded me to give her his love if she were not there. I am so glad I saw him not a month before he died; he was still good to visit even if the conversation was at a different level; probably mine is too.

 My friend Justus: a man of passion and integrity, devotion and determination, whose love for his family always came first in every way. 

Michael Rooksby

Willem Justus Havelaar 9/11/1915 to 12/13/2014

First, a brief story:
In the summer of 1965, by one of those flukes that has pursued me from time to time, I found myself in Rotterdam, playing officer cadet on a Canadian naval frigate. We were in Rotterdam for an official visit, tied to a wharf across the harbour from where, in 1951, the Havelaar family had departed for Canada aboard the M.V. Zuider Kruis.
Shortly after arrival, I was granted some leave to visit my great-aunt Emilie Mees, known in the family as “Old Tante Miek”, who lived  on an estate in the middle of Rotterdam.
We eventually got around to what we'd been doing in Rotterdam, and I explained that I'd been part of a select group of appropriately turned-out cadets and officers who had been received at City Hall.
“And did anyone make a fuss over you?” she asked.
“No, except I was interviewed by a newspaper reporter.”
“Well, it's too bad it wasn't the old mayor who greeted you. He would have recognized the significance of meeting a Havelaar.”

I think that was probably my first real insight into my dad's culture.

Those of you who have read his blog (justhavelaar.wordpress.com) will know the particulars of my parents' voyage to and settlement in Canada, and will appreciate the vistas of opportunity that move provided. You probably won't, however (because he glosses over the facts) fully grasp the hardships of the first ten years or so, which went hand-in-hand with the adventure.
It can't have been easy, for example, to survive that first Canadian winter with 4 young children in an uninsulated house built largely of wet shiplap. In fact, I now think I probably very nearly didn't survive it.
It can't have been easy for an ex-publisher to survive and then become accustomed to working in the woods as a chokerman, or in a sawmill, hauling lumber from the greenchain and loading it into boxcars, either of which would have been hard for anyone.
It can't have been easy the first time he was “laid off” during one of those cyclical logging-industry downturns, and anyone can imagine what he experienced, wondering how the family would cope, and where the next job was. I know that fear penetrated even my seven-year-old brain.
It can't have been easy working in English, a language of which he really had only academic knowledge. (Especially in Terrace, BC, where the rules of grammar didn't really apply!)
I know it was a real leap of faith and desperation to pack up in Terrace so that he and my mom could go to Normal School in Victoria.
And the whole time, I now realize, a man who had grown up in a family of considerable privilege, with maids to look after the household, had to deal with the fact that we were constantly desperately poor in a way we had never been in Holland, and could only escape that poverty through his labours and intellect.

If you asked him about this, he'd tell you they were successful because he and my mom were a formidable team, with complementary skills. He'd tell you he owed everything to her strength and sense of purpose, and the fact that he couldn't fail her. He'd refer to her ability to manage and stretch the little money they had. And he wouldn't be wrong: they did complement each other, and she was a rock.

But I think there's more to it than that. I think my father, in a way that eluded even my mother, had an adamantine sense of self. He never doubted that it was important to be a Havelaar, not in the standard social or class sense, but rather in the sense that he was part of a long line of people who knew how life worked.
He had been brought up imbued with the social and cultural capital of his extended family, and he just knew the rest would come.

And then, of course, it did.

How about that Brenda?! (and associated matters)

1    There must be something in the water in Area D of the Strathcona Regional District, and it can't all be runoff from the numerous and increasingly-problematic septic fields.
Whatever it is, it continues to work for Brenda Leigh, now about to enter her (can it be?) 8th term as the Director.
Although I don't live in area D, I drive through it on the highway several times a week on my way to and from Courtenay. This year I thought, once again, she might be in some trouble.
Particularly as, although she got out in front of the fight against amalgamation of part of Area D with Campbell River early, she was clearly not in control of the overwhelming rejection that the referendum produced.
Brenda's opposition this year was obviously well-organized and well-funded. They started with a sign campaign in September featuring large, well-designed, high-visibility signs in prominent locations, mixed with a saturation of smaller versions of that sign; by the end of the campaign they were also running large 4-colour ads featuring their attractive candidate in the local papers.
Maybe a month before the election date, Brenda's crew started putting our her now-familiar small black-and-white signs along the highway. A few weeks later these were joined by a number of larger signs stressing her experience. There may have been newspaper ads, but if there were they didn't strike me, hence I'd say not very effective.
Brenda won with 56% of the vote.
That's some machine!

On reflection, maybe it wasn't the smartest thing in the world to put those prominent “Honig” signs on some of Area D's most-obviously expensive properties at Bennett's Point!
Just sayin'.

2    For the past three years Campbell River has had a mayor in open warfare with most of his council much of the time. Consequently, he was on the losing side of most of the significant issues that council dealt with.
So this election he offered us a choice: elect me, elect my slate, and we'll rein in the bureaucracy and cut taxes dramatically. They advertised together, and spent a significant amount of money
Among the people I know at all well, the mayor was a pretty constant source of embarrassment for three years. Comparisons were made to Rob Ford. (minus the drugs, of course) Nobody I talked to believed much in the platform. He did not have the local papers on side.
He lost to a popular councillor, but only by 121 votes.

None of the slate was elected.
I'm hereby formally registering a sigh of relief.
The new council has two returning councillors, Larry Samson and Ron Kerr. The former tended to side with the majority; the latter with the mayor.
It also has Charlie Cornfield, a former mayor who sat out the last term for personal reasons, started to run for mayor, then spotted (or was persuaded) that this would result in the return of the incumbent and consequently ran for council instead. He topped the polls.
It also has Michelle Babchuk, a former School Board Chair (I'd be surprised if she doesn't have her sights set on eventually succeeding Claire as our MLA; if that's the case a session or two on council will surely help hone her skills!)
The last two places go to Marlene Wright and Colleen Evans. I clearly don't move in the right circles to know why they were elected, but suspect ties to the business community.
I voted for the new mayor and the top 3 vote-getters, so I'm optimistic, at least for the moment.

The one real surprise for me was that Claire Moglove, a lawyer who was clearly the most effective voice on the past Council and often appeared to be effectively the mayor, lost by 410 votes. Payback? I don't know.

3    The School Board returned essentially the same crew as before, although adding Richard Franklin, a well-respected former Elementary principal.
But really, what's the point? All BC school boards can do is try to mitigate the damage Victoria does, and deflect the anger of parents, teachers, and support staff. There must be better ways to spend the money they cost.

4    Rachel Blaney was elected the NDP candidate for North Island-Comox-Powell River last weekend. Congratulations to her and her team! They worked hard and won handily.
So why am I grumpy about it?
--not because the election had already been decided by mailed ballot before we got to the convention.
--not because the speeches were tedious and irrelevant.
--not because the average age in the room must have been well over 60, and all those under 40 appeared to be children or relatives of the candidates.
--not even because I voted for the wrong person, which I didn't.
I'm grumpy because neither candidate offered anything more than talking points. Furthermore, one is apparently confused about which are federal and which are provincial issues. The other started well but doesn't know when to stop talking. By the time we left to count votes, all the energy had been sucked from the room. I left realizing that neither had presented any coherent vision of what an NDP member of Parliament might actually do for the constituency.
I'm grumpy because I didn't hear anything that would suggest we've learned from previous elections, which, if I may remind my readers, the Conservatives won, on both sides of the new riding. The fact that John Duncan (John Duncan!) isn't running here doesn't mean that we're going to win. There are any number of scenarios available in which the Conservatives or the Liberals win, especially if the Liberals run a credible candidate. Which is exactly what Peter Schwarzhoff is...
I'm grumpy because I don't know how I'd deal with my despair after another majority Conservative government. And especially if we let them have this constituency.
Again.
On the optimistic side, we've got a year to get it right, and no, the usual people (myself included) are now too long in the tooth and can no longer be relied on to get results.
Recruiting a team that can must be job one.

Promised billions?

Your editorial about BC liquified natural gas,  A Taxing Negotiation (Sept. 29) says the BC Premier, Minister of Finance and Minister of Energy "may have good explanations for what looks like double taxation on a particular industry."
They do - it's political! - but we'll never hear it from them.
Natural gas royalties have plummeted under their watch, while production levels have increased dramatically. [In 2012 Marc Lee, in an analysis for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, noted that: "As a share of provincial GDP, royalties were 1.13% in 2005/06, but have fallen to just 0.07% of GDP in 2012/13. On a per capita basis, royalties fell from $458 per British Columbian to just $34 over the same time period."]
If LNG plants are permitted to recover their billions in costs before paying even the "extra tax" you wonder about, it seems unlikely that the exporters will ever have to pay it, and even more unlikely that the Premier's promise of "billions" to the provincial treasury will ever be realized.


The section in italics was excised in the version printed in the Globe and Mail on October 1, 2014

We own a Westy

If you drive a VW camper van, from time to time you will break down.
It’s axiomatic, almost a universal law.
This June I was with Mike and Larry, on the third Three Amigos tour. We’d camped at the Provincial Campground near Kinuseo Falls, which is over 40 km past Tumbler Ridge on a bad gravel road. We were getting gas at one of the few places in Chetwynd where you can do that, on our way to Pine Pass and Crooked River Provincial Park an hour out of Prince George.
Parked on the other side of the pumps when we drove up was an absolutely pristine red VW Eurovan Westphalia. When it’s owner emerged, I asked the year: a 2002. (I believe that’s either the last or the penultimate year they were imported.)
However, when I admired his vehicle, the owner, a gentleman about my own age with an accent more obviously European than my own, pronounced himself more than a little annoyed.  It was parked there because he couldn’t get it started. He was pretty sure it was something electrical, but couldn’t get anyone who knew anything to look at it.
I couldn’t do anything but commiserate, because I know the nearest VW garage to Chetwynd is in High Prairie, Alberta...
And I was very pleased it wasn’t my van, because that would have been more than a little awkward.
It’s also one of the things you accept as a VW camper van owner, until you don't. We got rid of our much-loved Vanagon Westy after it had broken down for the third time in one trip, just outside of Vancouver, Washington.
Of course, before that we’d been as far afield as Yellowknife, NWT and Austin, Texas without incident...
Which is why, after we limped the Vanagon back to Victoria, we promptly bought our present Eurovan, which is a gem, and has given us and the people we have lent it to almost no trouble.
But this weekend it added Idaho to Washington and Oregon, the states in which we’ve broken down:
This saga started in Washington State, just outside of Clarkson. Sandy had mistakenly navigated us down the Washington side of the Snake River, and had just noticed our destination, the Hell's Gate State Park on the other side, when the alternator light came on. Or maybe I just hadn't noticed it before.
Anyway, suffering from considerable psychological tension, as we were retracing our route to get to Lewiston, on the Idaho side (get it? Lewis & Clark?) I remembered that the last time the van had done this, now several years ago, I'd freaked out, only to find out, once the van was safely in the care of Sunwest VW, that the light was on due to a loose connection.
Anyway, we got to the campsite without incident, met Enid and Isaac there, and had a fine time  camping by the lovely Snake River and drinking Washington wine and Oregon beer.

Next morning we set off. The alternator light came on, then went off (thus cementing my belief in the loose connection) and didn't come on again until we had nearly achieved the summit overlooking the confluence of the Snake and the Clearwater, including the two communities.
I took the necessary photos, and we proceeded on to Moscow, then past it. No issues.

Enid and Isaac had just passed us for the second time when the engine started to sputter, and within a quarter mile it had just stopped entirely.
Fortunately, I'd had the foresight to pull off, and also fortunately, San's phone could get service. (Enid's, which was charging in our care, couldn't) So she phoned the AAA.

They were extremely helpful, and two hours later we were in a large truck, the van secured to the deck on the back, on our way to Coeur d'Alene.
By that time we were back in contact with Isaac, and they picked us up at the garage. Mechanics in Idaho don't work on Saturday so Enid found a room for 4 at Bennett Bay Inn on beautiful Lake Coeur d'Alene. Where we ended the day drinking Washington wine and Idaho beer around the firepit, of course.

Because Enid and Isaac have a car, we spent Sunday on Mount Spokane with its 360 degree views (all the way to Canada!) so our weekend tourist needs were well satisfied.

On Monday the technician diagnosed the problem: a dead battery, alternator kaput, and possibly a frayed timing belt as well. The parts were available in Spokane.
They would arrive next day.
So we found ourselves enjoying the “corporate rate” at the Best Western, which is hardly traumatic, although living there does expose one to the less-touristy (hence considerably less lovely) scenery of Coeur d’Alene’s outskirts.
And very pleased to have  both a BCAA membership and a cell phone that works in the US!

PostScript:
You know the very best thing about our experience this time? It's the fact that not one person has expressed dismay at being asked to work on a VW van, never mind the, "Sorry; we don't work on those" we heard several times when our Vanagon broke!

letter to the Globe

The Editor,
Globe and Mail

Sir,
There's a mine at the head of Buttle Lake in Strathcona Park on Vancouver Island. For years it had permission to drop its tailings into the lake, which in addition to being part of a hydro reservoir is Campbell River's municipal watershed.
For years this seemed a relatively benign solution; promoters of the mine said there was and would be no effect on the water.
And then testing started to show an alarming increase in heavy metals in our water supply.
That was when the mine built a proper tailings pond and system. The problem began to diminish gradually until nowadays we don't think much about it any longer.
Want to bet that's what the people living downstream of the Mount Polley Mine tailing pond disaster are looking at in their future unless the tailings are recovered and cleaned up?
(That's most of British Columbia's population, by the way.)

Sincerely,

To the Class of '84

Dear Class of '84:

You'll forgive me if I don't remember very many of you individually or those I do, very clearly. It's been a while!
That said, your class embodies one of the favourite memories of my teaching career.
Here's why:
I arrived at Robron, after 10 years at Carihi, when you were in Grade 11 and the school was still undergoing some construction. I applied to come, largely because of Kieran O'Neill and Jim Beck, the Principal and Vice-Principal, in spite of the prevailing teacher gossip that Robron was an under-resourced construction disaster.
I still consider them among the best I ever worked with in my 35-year career.
Anyway, back to why you became one of my favourite graduating classes ever:
Some of you may remember the spate of racist incidents in the Rockland area in the late '70s. Those attitudes were in evidence at Robron as well, and the staff decided to tackle any racism that existed head-on. Obviously, the success of the program depended on your class, the school leaders, taking on the message that racism was unacceptable and would not be tolerated at Robron.
Which is what you did; your class was the first in Campbell River to feature students of East-Indian descent among its leaders in both sports and academics.
The consequence of the direction set by your class was that by the time my own children graduated from Robron in the '90s, racism was no longer either socially acceptable at Robron or a significant issue.
Perhaps even more importantly, your teachers applied the lessons we learned from you at Robron in other schools and in other districts.
Which makes your class kind of famous, indirectly!

Have a great reunion!
Justus Havelaar