The election is now ancient history, the pollsters have gone into hiding and the voters of this riding have given Michelle Stilwell a strong mandate (it would have been much larger if the upstart Conservatives didn’t play skunk at the garden party and the greens ran a candidate) to go to Victoria with the concerns of her constituents and fight for them. With a larger Liberal majority win and one of the two Liberal seats from the Island in the house, we expect and need to see a return on our tax dollars.
An election brings out the best and worst of people, and often speaks to character or lack of same.
It is customary in a campaign, that the loser has the courtesy and common decency to call the victor and congratulate him or her. It is now (as of Sunday) six days since the results were posted but still no call from Barry Avis to Stilwell. Talk about a sore loser, but why am I not surprised?
However it took less than 24 hours for Avis to get back into campaign mode and in an interview with your assistant editor Neil Horner, stated that “Qualicum Beach council would certainly be a consideration in the upcoming election”. Horner, in his usual open-minded, unbiased opinion column goes on to say — along with a rant on the end of the world — that now that Avis has time to run for council, he would win by a wide margin and then council could get back to working at something useful. God forbid, a return to the original gang of three — Teunis Westbroek, Scott Tanner and Avis — would be the last nail in the QB coffin.
Remember that it was disingenuous Avis who refused to take his hat out of the last municipal election ring until he secured the NDP nomination. It’s called hedging your bet. Getting thrown under the bus was OK for us then, but now he apparently has a change of heart.
Don’t forget this fact folks when going to the polls in 2014. A leopard doesn’t change his spots.
If you have a desire to see what direction Avis takes in the future, just continue to look to the left and follow the money.
Fox McKinley
Qualicum Beach