As the year draws to a close, it's time to take stock of things I've put in this column for the last 52 weeks. Things like predictions and forecasts - you know, activities that can make me look like a genius or an utter fool!
It can be challenging to go out on a limb fairly regularly in such a public way, and open myself to humiliation and contempt, or deep-seated admiration (this, trust me, rarely occurs). But it makes my email more interesting.
In any event, let's look back at some of my track record:
* Wrong: the NDP would win the spring provincial election. Might as well get this major gaffe out of the way right at the start. Like pretty well every other columnist, reporter, pundit etc. (with the notable exception of fellow North Shore News columnist Trevor Lautens) I predicted an NDP cakewalk to victory. I should have stuck to my original take on the election result, made shortly after both parties' leadership contests. At a business conference, I held up a newspaper photo of a beaming Christy Clark and one of an uncomfortable looking Adrian Dix, and boldly predicted the smiling, confident Clark would wipe the floor with Dix. Then those darn polls started to appear ...
* Right: The Green party would elect an MLA during the election. Well, at least I got something right about that contest. Andrew Weaver won, as I expected, in Oak Bay-Gordon Head. Driving around that riding a week before election day, I noted how I had never seen more campaign signs for a single candidate on people's lawns. Boulevards are public spaces, but private lawns? Those are earned, dedicated votes.
* Wrong: The so-called "ethnic memo" scandal would hurt the B.C. Liberals in the election. The scheme that saw tax dollars mixed up with doing blatant partisan work for the B.C. Liberal Party mattered not a whit with voters. That suggests voters may hold the cynical view that all political parties are guilty of such things and end up not giving any party an advantage on the issue (this may mean the Senate expense scandal seemingly dogging the Harper government may not be a major factor that determines the outcome of the next federal election).
In any event, the B.C. Liberals ended up doing much better than the NDP when it came to winning support of the ethnic community vote in the election.
* Right: B.C. Hydro rates would increase significantly. Anyone with basic knowledge of the
energy issue could see the inevitability of this. But with an election hovering over the politicians for a lengthy time, none of them (from either major party) wanted to admit that or even talk about such a thing. But the day of reckoning has come, and rates are indeed going up.
* Wrong: It was going to be impossible for the provincial government to balance its budget, as tabled back in February. I may be a tad premature here, as the final numbers won't be known for a few months yet. But it appears that halfway through the year, Finance Minister Mike de Jong may indeed balance the books, albeit on the proverbial razor's edge. He's been able to hold the line on spending, and there may be enough of a built-in cushion (called the "forecast allowance") to offset any significant decline in revenue.
* Right: The smart-meter protest was a lot of noise about nothing. It turns out that 99 per cent of B.C. Hydro customers have taken the smart meters, while the rest - a mixture, it seems, of the tinfoil-hat crowd and chem-trail chasers - have opted to pay more than $400 to keep the old analog meters. Bill Vander Zalm is one of their champions, but he failed to find anywhere near the success he had fighting the HST.
And now a new year is about to begin and more issues will emerge that I'll try to navigate, likely with mixed success. For example, what will be the result of the TransLink referendum? Who will win the NDP leadership race (assuming someone actually runs for the job)? Will Premier Christy Clark make any mistakes that seriously erode her popularity? As always, it will be a busy year in B.C. politics. And I look forward to trying to read the tea leaves, hopefully with much success. At least there is no provincial election on the horizon!
