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Too many people have lost too much

Dealing with the aftermath will be difficult

Another week, another batch of wildfires joining the ones that persist in attacking the countryside. Human efforts seem pretty puny when battling nature out in full force. When will it end?

So far, I haven’t lost anything except peace of mind, and the smoke keeps me penned inside, but too many people have lost their homes, their work, everything. Along with the heartbreaking personal losses, there is the economic fallout. Dealing with the fires is bad enough, dealing with the aftermath will be no joy either. At last count, firefighting costs alone were $285 million and the season still has weeks to go. So many of our economic engines have been hit, directly or indirectly. The senior governments will help, but even so, some smaller businesses might not recover.

While British Columbia is burning up, the world keeps turning. One of the unexpected turns was Christie Clark’s resignation as both party leader and MLA. Her departure should be good news for Premier John Horgan, at least in the short term. Will he fly at making changes the way Dave Barrett did ? Or will he be cautious? Will his budget reflect Ms. Clark’s last one which included so many NDP plans?

And then there are the mad men and nuclear warfare. So far it’s mainly a shouting match between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. What should give us chills though is that President Trump is said to have the absolute power to launch almost 1,000 nuclear warheads in a matter of minutes if he wants to. Kim Jong-un has nothing like that kind of power, nuclear or otherwise.

Nobody should have.

All in all, we could be in for an eventful winter.

Diana French is a freelance columnist for the Tribune. She is a former Tribune editor, retired teacher, historian and book author.