Prime Minister Trudeau, you’re on the Island! Gosh, what a surprise!
Wish you had let us know you were coming. We would have tidied up a bit. (’Scuse us while we stick our empties out the back door.)
Thought you might show up for Rifflandia, sure, but the B.C. Day long weekend? Most prime ministers couldn’t find Victoria on a map (“It’s on an island?!”), but you’re here more often than Christy Clark. (Sorry. Reflex.)
We know you’re busy — speech in Victoria on Friday, high-fiving kids at Sidney Spit on Saturday, meetings in Tofino — but hope you can stick around a bit. What’s your hurry? Keep your shirt on. (On second thought, certain family members say you needn’t take that shirt-on thing literally.)
Hope you didn’t get stuck on the Malahat while headed up to Tuff City. Lately, it’s been like shoving 10 pounds of potatoes into a five-pound bag, more congestion than a Claritin commercial. Blame tourist season. Blame the highway construction — by the way, thanks for the $33 million in federal money for the McKenzie Interchange.
What? That was Stephen Harper? Never mind, we’re sure you have something else in the pipeline for us (probably diluted bitumen, ha! ha! ha!).
Hope you planned a way to get off the Island, too. B.C. Ferries had a three-sailing wait the other day. Three sailings. One more and we would have had to go Dunkirk and press-gang every Bayliner and gillnetter from Chemainus to Sidney.
That was with all boats in working order, too. When the Queen of Nanaimo broke down last week it turned Salt Spring into Gilligan’s Island. Basically, the Nanaimo is like one of those 1957 Buicks still rolling around Havana with parts hand-tooled from jam cans and shopping carts. B.C. Ferries had to rush the new Salish Raven into service a few months early, kind of like how the Canucks treat their draft picks.
Oh well, such is the price of living in Paradise, all the visitors crowding our ferries and roads. Guess we’re too darned attractive for our own good, too perfect.
What’s that?
No, that’s not wildfire smoke. It’s just the haze from Victoria’s 437 pot shops. Almost as hazy as the details of your legalization rules. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) And no, that’s not a Sunday brunch lineup, it’s a food bank. And no, that’s not chalk art on the sidewalk, it’s evidence of our incontinent-gull problem. (Take your shirt off if you like, but I’d definitely wear shoes.)
And yes, you’re right, it has been uncomfortably stuffy and hot. At least, hot for Victoria, which is like being humble for a Trump.
Sorry! Sorry! Here you are trying to enjoy a nice West Coast getaway and we have to spoil things by bringing up the T-word — though, the contrast doesn’t hurt you, does it? Can you imagine a just-married couple photo-bombing Trump’s kayak? From newlywed to widowed within two boat-lengths. Can you imagine Trump in a kayak at all (or at least one without a helipad)? There’d be no Justin Trudeau: Why Can’t He Be Our President? Rolling Stone cover if Obama were still around.
Have to watch for the backlash, though. It’s just like construction in Victoria: Try building it too tall, someone will start squawking about height limits.
That is, every time Victoria goes into its 1980s Kelly Le Brock “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful” routine, the rest of the country prays for the seismographs to spike. Nothing brings a smile to the frostbitten lips of Red Deer or Regina like the televised images of Victoria turned into a Mad Max dystopia by half an inch of snow.
Ditto for the sight of Trudeau going ass over teakettle out of a kayak. The harder they fall, and all that.
Don’t pretend there’s any such thing as perfection. Not in a Pacific Paradise. Not in a prime minister.
