Opinion

It’s that time of year when B.C. politicians should start thinking about some New Year’s resolutions for a bit of political self-improvement.

With Bob Rae gone from Parliament Hill, perhaps we couldn’t expect much in the way of oration and reasoning in federal politics in 2014.

During the summer, while visiting my kids' grandparents, Jack, my eight-year-old son, and I decided to take Cricket, the family pug, for a walk on an undeveloped piece of land nearby.

This year, a nephew announced he wouldn’t be spending the holidays with his parents. Instead, he had booked a hiking and skiing holiday with his university friends.

There was a time, and it was not so long ago, when some certainties existed that made year-to-year planning for school districts more like an exercise in logic and less like a visit to a casino.

When I wrote last week about the sinking of HMCS Clayoquot near Halifax on Christmas Eve, 1944, I recounted the incident mainly from one sailor’s perspective, but his was just one story.

Premier Christy Clark has added to the outer reaches of her already bloated cabinet by appointing a parliamentary secretary for “energy literacy and the environment.” Where to begin? Political titles, of course, are a minefield.

In response to Valerie Leithoff’s commentary (“No need to fear genetically modified crops,” Dec. 20), it is more correct to say Canada is going to need thorough testing of genetically modified organisms in the future.

The holiday season is full of many associations. For both the devout and the secular, when December arrives we are invited to look again at the state of our lives and the state of our world.

The next time you’re on the Queen of New Westminster, one of the oldest vessels in the B.C. Ferries fleet, pay attention to the canny way the ferry is loaded.