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FRENCH CONNECTION: Spring has arrived

Spring officially sprung last Sunday, but the weather has been typically springy for a while now, bright and sunny one day, cloudy and wet the next, often changing its mind a couple of times a day.
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Spring officially sprung last Sunday, but the weather has been typically springy for a while now, bright and sunny one day, cloudy and wet the next, often changing its mind a couple of times a day.

One sure sign of spring, birds are back.

Not necessarily spring news, but the U.S. Senate okayed making Day Light Savings time permanent.

B.C. has been wanting to do that for ages but there was no point in it if our southern neighbours didn’t.

I’m all in favour of having one set time but have mixed feelings about which one. DST is the majority choice, but there are a number of reasons to stay with Standard time.

As I age, the more likely I am to have mixed feelings about issues.

Often we are so angry with politicians about something or another that we see only our side and don’t appreciate that the powers-that-be can’t please everyone all the time.

However, Canada’s particular brand of two- major-party dominated democracy doesn’t help.

We keep one party in power until we think they are getting out of line, then elect the other bunch to have a go at it until they screw up.

A unanimous vote in parliament is a rare and wondrous event.

The last few years have seen our governments coping with extraordinary issues, the COVID pandemic and now the possibility of World War Three.

It’s a time for unity, not divisive opposition.

The pandemic brought out the worst in us.

READ MORE: ‘Unacceptable:’ B.C. attorney general responds after premier, ministers hung in effigy

B.C. leads the parade as the “hating” province according to the Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety (Statistics Canada) with the most police-reported hate crimes per capita in 2020, with a rate of 10.1 per 100,000 population.

That’s not counting the hate spewed on the Internet. It isn’t anything to brag about.



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