It is getting so beautiful at night now, with all the Christmas lights and decorations around town. My walk home from work is breathtaking. The Empress has the same set up they did last year, but it is still beautiful anyway. The Legislature is different from last year and, in my opinion, a lot better...more colourful! The sequoia in Centennial Square is also lit beautifully, and the lamp posts are red, green, blue and white as opposed to all white. The open spaces at the top of the
Carillon Bell Tower are also coloured and back lit. The trees lining Douglas and Government Streets are lit and there are wreaths and other holiday themes. I know I am Jewgnostic, but still...I think it is all beautiful and breathtaking. It's been nice seeing all this evolve or the last few weeks.
I do hope we'll be able to take picture soon, and post. The Lighted Truck Parade and the Lighted Ship Parade are happening back to back on Saturday, so maybe Chas will come down to the harbour and take some photos and video. In the meantime, I found a picture to go with the post til we get our own stuff up.
It is like this but there are more lights on it now, and the giant tree on the lawn is also lit as of Monday, I think. (BTW, this is the Provincial Legislature Building)
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1 comments:
Not-so-anonymous-Mark-Glenn-notes:
Looks like PM Harper shut down parliment mainly to avoid a no confidence vote. Canada had a National election in which all of the other parties lost because their campain ideas totally sucked. Their first response was "Hey, people are getting laid off and the steel and auto industries are in the toliet, so I have an idea... let's charge people more taxes!" So now if you can't win an election fairly why not have a vote of no confidence to force yet another election?
Since all five parties lost in October, no one party, not even the Conservatives, had a mandate to govern Canada on their own. This is the very definition of "minority government" in a parliamentary democracy, and when Harper (the Conservative leader) pretends that the coalition is anti-democratic is a lie.
In a minority government (the Conservatives got 37% of the vote but 47% of the seats), the party with the most seats is traditionally offered to try to form a government, either by immediate coalition or by trying to get members of other parties to vote with them on a vote-by-vote basis for crucial (i.e. confidence) votes, budget votes, and the like. Harper and the Conservatives could no longer do either, so instead Harper chose to run away for 8 weeks, presumably to get 8 more weeks of non-regulated propaganda out.
I'm reminded of the old adage "You can't polish a turd" when it comes to political motives, and that seems to hold true no matter which country you're living in.
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