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COLUMNS: The fight for power

Our mainstream media tends to focus on news coming from our neighbours to the south
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Our mainstream media tends to focus on news coming from our neighbours to the south — disastrous fires, disastrous politics to name two.

Our fires can’t compare with the California infernos, but our politicians are doing their best to match to the U.S. batch when it comes to fighting with each other. In the US it’s the GOP vs the Democrats. In Canada the federal Liberals and Conservatives are at each other with the NDP and Greens winging around in between. Each province has its own lineup but basically it’s the same story, a fight for power between the so-called right and lefties.

I wish they’d spend their energies finding a few things to agree on (we have enough problems, that shouldn’t be hard ) and would work together to make life better all their constituents.

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Now we have another version of #MeToo. Long time Conservative MP and former cabinet minister Tony Clement admitted to “sexting” — sending unseemly photos of himself over the Internet — but only because one recipient of his favours tried to extort him.

This was dangerous territory as Mr. Clement sat on the government’s high-level national security committee. He now sits as a lonely independent.

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Then there are natural enemies. There have been a couple of dozen little birds visiting in the lilac bush outside my window all summer and fall. Some are still here making good use of the bird feeder. They drive my young cat nuts. He sits on the window sill salivating. I’m not sure he’d know what to do if he caught one of them but the instinct is certainly there.

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If you still have your referendum ballot, you can take it to the Service BC office at the provincial building for safe delivery in case there’s a mail strike.

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