The Storm the Day After

 There’s been a series of gales in Prince Rupert that began the day after the American Election.  The first Morning after, I was taking my wife up to catch the bus to Terrace at 8:00 up on  summit hill, and she almost got blown over by the gusts. The wind and rain were vicious and relentless. I stayed inside as much as I could and watched the waves of hard rain and the branches of the big spruce lash back and forth in the heavy gusts.  

It’s wonderful to be cozy and warm indoors and know that you are safe even in the midst of a storm.  Some people are not so lucky though.  Like the people in the Caribbean  and the American South who get struck by hurricanes.  When your house is in the path of a hurricane the immense power of the wind can turn it into a deadly foe as the house goes from a means of protection to a lethal barrage of exploding timber in a split second.

Maybe you can see where I’m going here.  We can feel safe and secure here in Canada as Americans do their destructive thing. But the United States is the biggest economy in the world. For that reason alone the effects of this foreign election will be destructive around the globe, but especially in Canada because the U.S. is our biggest trading partner. 

 

Democratic elections are always going to be divisive to some degree; the American Presidential election, because so much is at stake, is decidedly so.  Less than a month ago we had a very close provincial election, and the NDP scraped back to power, with the Conservatives breathing down their necks.  And we wait for the coming Federal election which we all know will occur sometime next year.  Elections can be divisive, but as Canadians we have faith that whoever gets into power will be reasonably competent at governing or else they will be voted out of office in four years or less.  That used to be the case in the U.S. but it isn’t anymore. With Donald Trump we are looking at a world of chaos for who knows how long.  It’s great to live in a safe, prosperous country like Canada, but we should never take it for granted.  Sometimes a big wind comes from the south and it is strong enough to uproot everything.