The only groups feeling worse than the NDP in the wake of the surprising Liberal election win must be all the pundits and pollsters. All their indicators and surveys showed there was to be a major change in the electoral makeup here in B.C. When the major upsets of 2013 are rounded up, this result will rank up there with the Boston Bruins’ improbable come from behind to beat Toronto in the NHL playoffs.

As Yogi Berra once remarked, “That’s the trouble with the future. It’s so hard to predict.” Along with Churchill’s, “Lies, more lies and damn statistics” regarding his troubles with a fickle electorate back in the day, one must feel a sense of schadenfreude whenever some top dog gets taken out.

In the late ‘80s when the Berlin Wall was coming down, the East German secret police, the Stasi as they were known, were caught completely flat-footed by the fast turning events partly because they had so many people keeping tabs on so many others that the information, rather than being useful, became an avalanche that effectively buried any chance of action. It might be a stretch to compare politics in B.C. with the fall of the Soviet Empire but they meet common ground when having too much information clouds decision making.

“Not seeing the forest for all the trees” is another old cliché that’s ringing true post-election. Had anyone predicted 10 years ago that on any street in Canada people wouldn’t be walking and talking with each other, but rather twiddling their thumbs on some kind of device, they would’ve been viewed as some kind of nut rather than a far-seer.

While losing her own seat must be the fly in the ointment for Christy Clark, she knows that she can parachute into a safe riding in the next by-election and continue being the Queen Bee in B.C. for four more years. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, given that in the rest of Canada, and indeed the world, we’re governed by some of the “least worst” politicians. Most people in our province are fortunate enough to be doing reasonably well. Rocking the boat was not the electorate’s mission this time. With winning comes a natural sense of entitlement; a feeling of, “We know best what is good for you,” and the inevitable arrogance will fill column inches for the next four years while the governing party copes with keeping the ship of state on a relatively even keel.

The ugly part of the campaign — the attack ads worked. While the NDP were commending themselves on a clean, well-mannered approach, they were lulled by their own pacifism into thinking that politics is fair. Like life, it often isn’t. The bigger implication for the party is that the B.C. election was supposed to auger in a sea of change for them nationally while planning to defeat the fumbling Harper regime. It’s back to the drawing board.

It’s a good discussion to revisit with the recent debates in America on gay and lesbian couples’ right to marriage, and with Statistics Canada’s upcoming release of the results of the National Household Survey, the replacement for the long form census. Results from the short form census were released last September, and for the first time it reported numbers of same-sex couples and their family structures in Canada.

Same-sex marriage in Canada isn’t new. It was on July 20, 2005 that Bill C-38, the Civil Marriage Act, was passed into law, allowing same-sex couples in Canada to marry. Canada’s 2011 census shows that between 2006 and 2011 the number of same-sex married couples in this country tripled to almost 65,000 couples. Of this group, 10 per cent are raising children.

Opposition groups have long-since launched campaigns and published studies claiming children growing up with same-sex parents will be poorly educated, depressed, or guilty of crimes, to name some of the factors one group, the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada cites. However, other studies don’t support these results.

Benjamin Siegel, a professor of pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine, is the co-author of a report issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) that looked at more than 80 studies, books and articles conducted over 30 years and concluded that same-sex marriage would in fact strengthen families and benefit children.

“Children thrive in families that are stable and that provide permanent security, and the way we do that is through marriage,” said Siegel of the policy statement. “The AAP believes there should be equal opportunity for every couple to access the economic stability and federal supports provided to married couples to raise children.” 

The statement defines the critical factors that affect the normal development and mental health of children as parental stress, economic and social stability, community resources, discrimination, and children’s exposure to toxic stressors at home or in their communities — not the sexual orientation of their parents.

Family matters, and matters of the family are always going to raise debate. But, opposition to issues of civil rights have a history of being unfounded.

Almost 10 years ago law professor at the University of Virginia Kim Forde-Mazrui drew parallels between interracial marriages and same-sex unions.

“If religious, scientific, moral opposition to interracial relationships — sex, marriage and adoption — were wrong, notwithstanding the sincerity and good faith of those who believed in the opposition, then are the same arguments any more justified when they are used to oppose same-sex relationships?” Forde-Mazrui asked. “It seems that the similarities at least shift the burden . . . . We’ve tried this before. We’ve learned in hindsight this is wrong.”

Legal and perceptual tides are indeed changing, and today a man like Zach Wahls, Eagle Scout, accidental marriage advocate and son of two moms has a voice that’s approaching mainstream, “The sexual orientation of my parents has had zero effect on the content of my character.”

The discussion surrounding proposed regulation on international shark trade at the recent Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species is evidence that some people are concerned, but the baby steps taken are ineffective. The statement basically says we shouldn’t kill so many sharks. Canada has a small shark fishery going after the porbeagle, a species categorized as vulnerable, endangered and critically endangered in its various zones, and the spiny dogfish which is classified as vulnerable globally, and critically endangered in the Northeast Atlantic. We refuse to give it up.

In Richmond, B.C., the city council refused to ban the sale of shark fin soup saying it would be out of line with ethnic sensitivities. Apparently “ethnic sensitivities” trump the reality of poor animals having major body parts chopped off and then thrown back into the water to die excruciating deaths. Another Chinese proverb says anything with four legs can be eaten, except the table, while Chinese writer Lin Yutang wrote, “We eat everything on earth that is edible; crabs by way of preference, the bark of trees when we must.” This goes for finned creatures too.

To prevent me from being the world’s most boring gloom monger here’s a spark of good news. It’s been reported that the Japanese are losing their appetite for whale meat. It’s taken 50 years for some of them to do so. Marine populations don’t have the luxury of surviving that long. Without real leadership all marine creatures will face drastic and possibly irreversible crashes in numbers.

Even my most ardent environmentalist friends are clueless about the extent of the devastation of the resource. They say the reasons for fisheries’ troubles are oil spills, pollution, global warming and acidification of the seas. They have a point, but what really kills 110 million tonnes of fish annually, never mind the other hundreds of millions of tonnes of so called bycatch (turtles, seals, dolphins and smaller fish), is commercial fishing.

“Save the fish, be a warmonger” isn’t exactly what I’m proposing. Despite the proliferation of sushi restaurants creating wonderful new dishes with excellent preparation, a year ago I made the decision not to touch seafood. Let’s eat those flatulent cattle and pigs for a while and give all seafood a break. Bon appetit!

Sun Peaks Alpine Club volunteer Karen Cowburn was awarded “Volunteer of the Year” at the BC Alpine Spring Meetings.

Sun Peaks, and the Sun Peaks Alpine Club were well recognized at the BC Alpine Spring Meetings in Kelowna this May. The meetings are an opportunity for the provincial ski racing community to gather and recognize some of the year’s top athletes, coaches, volunteers, clubs and officials.

“You should all know how proud you can be of your mountain, your club, and its members,” says past program director Johnny Crichton. “We took the lion’s share of the awards at the BC Alpine Spring Meetings!”

Karen Cowburn was awarded Volunteer of theYear, and James Clarkson was named Development Coach of the Year. Clarkson has recently taken over Crichton’s role as program director of the Sun Peaks Alpine Club.

Additionally, the Sun Peaks Alpine Club came out on top as Ski Club of the Year, and Sun Peaks Resort was recognized as Ski Resort of the Year.

“Many thanks to our mountain, our members and our partners,” says Crichton. “(This was) a great team effort! The province is recognizing what we are doing here at Sun Peaks, (and we’re) looking forward to a great season with James at the helm.”

Why is it then, if everything is all snowy and rosy in the winter happiness department, that people are such pigs? Here we live in one of the nicest parts of B.C., let alone the world, and once the snow is all gone Sun Peaks looks like a garbage dump.

I’d understand if there was a little litter here or there after the winter’s snow retreats, but what I was faced with this year was beyond anything I’d seen in over a decade of living here.

You name it and it’s out there lying on the ground waiting for some caring individual to come along and pick it up: cans, bottles, boxes, butts, garbage, full dog poo bags, underwear, socks and the list goes on and on and on. Do people actually think the snow is some magic medium that just eats all the garbage they throw into it throughout the winter months?

In the place and time I grew up, one simply didn’t litter and if you did you usually got a swift boot in the ass when you were caught. Why is then, that things have gone so far in the other direction?

In this day and age of enviro this and enviro that being hammered home in the mainstream populace, people still don’t seem to care about chucking their waste into the snowbank and simply walking away.

It blows my mind that people are so self-centred that for a moment they totally block out all the good, healthy fun they had with their buddies powder skiing on the mountain all day to dump the contents of their car in Bento’s parking lot or somewhere else.

Who do you think has to deal with it? The people who live and work in Sun Peaks, that’s who. It’s really quite sad that I feel I have to write this same piece each year, yet it seems to fall on deaf ears because the garbage just gets worse each season. There are lots of garbage cans around and the transfer station is open seven days a week in the winter so why all the mess? Because people are plain lazy, that’s why. Out-of-sight, out-of-mind, right? Wrong, because now the locals who live here year round need to clean it up.

Sad but true, it’s now up to every resident of Sun Peaks to lend a hand to get this great place back to its true beauty. So, come out for the annual Sun Peaks Trash Bash on Thursday, May 16 from 4:30 to 7 p.m. and, in the meantime, grab a bag and some gloves and get what you can around your house or neighbourhood. After all, so many don’t care about our community but I know you do.

To say Dale’s tale is a curious one is an understatement — a cowboy by day and skateboarder by night, he’s probably best known for being an Olympic and World Cup speed skier.

Dale was born in Calgary and moved to Kamloops when he was three-years-old. He grew up playing hockey in Kamloops and skateboarded. In 1977 he won the junior Canadian skateboarding championships. He learned to ski after midget hockey, and naturally started racing.

“I used to race a lot of recreational downhill races through B.C. and Alberta . . . I ended up hearing about speed skiing in the mid 1980s,” Dale said.

Dale was inspired to start speed skiing by the world’s fastest, like Kent Wills, world champion speed skier, and Terry Watts, World Cup champion. In the 1980s Wills and Watts helped organize a recreational speed skiing tour titled the Canada Cooler Dash series. Dale credits competing in the Cooler Dash for fueling his passion for speed skiing.

Dale went on to compete in speed skiing at the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, when speed skiing was a demonstration sport. His wife Lark Frolek-Dale also competed and placed sixth in the women’s speed skiing.

“It was just the experience of a lifetime,” Dale said. “We put in a bunch of years prior to that travelling to Europe and getting on the World Cup circuit just to have the points to be named for the team.”

Since then Dale went on to compete in countless speed skiing events and in 2007 he won a World Cup final in the FIS Speed Ski World Cup at Sun Peaks. He also holds the record for the Sun Peaks Velocity Challenge, at 177.21 km/h set in 2002.

But speed skiing’s is only one part of his story. Dale’s had a varied work life, he’s worked in geophysics and geology in mining, in the forestry industry, and now he’s a cowboy for the Frolek Cattle Company.

“I’ve been working on the ranch for just about 20 years,” said Dale, adding that in the down season on the ranch he works a sawmill he has at his home.
And he still loves skateboarding, which led him to purchase a large glass dome from an old restaurant, the Dome Motor Inn in Kamloops, to house a skateboard half-pipe.

“We skate at least once or twice a week during the winter, it’s a lot of fun, great training,” Dale said.

Dale agreed that the case of the skateboarding cowboy was unusual.

“I don’t think there’s too many of us!”

“The general rule is that you make sure your smoke alarm doesn’t have dust or spiders,” Cannon explained.

While Cannon said that the usual lifespan of a smoke alarm is 10 years from the time it’s installed, it should be tested regularly. From 2006 to 2011, in 11,000 residential fires in B.C., nearly 70 per cent of homes had no smoke alarm or the smoke alarm wasn’t working, according to data from Office of the Fire Commissioner.

“A smoke alarm is a very inexpensive way of saving your life,” Cannon said.

“Another thing is the doors in your house will contain any fire for long time . . . it’s better to sleep with your (bedroom) door closed.”