Coquitlam, it turns out, is not as bad a place as I had heard. Have not heard a police siren in the two months I have made my way around most corners of it. For someone who has lived most of his life in towns with enough bloodthirst to put an end to the conflicts in the Middle East the peacefulness of Coquitlam is downright Cleaverish - until you remember it is the basically the same fucking place Willie Pickton once put his rubber boots on.
There do not seem to be enough bars and beer stores for my liking. (Nor will there ever be enough bars and beer stores since we are about to enter Canada's Everybody Must Get Stoned era.) Nor did I notice any storefront weed shops. Even Steepleton has a few of those. Maybe everybody in town is into hard drugs.
Like most towns Coquitlam has every common retail outlet on Earth emptying the wallets of people in town into the pockets of the 62 richest fuckers on the planet. Except for ethnic food I could not find a family owned restaurant anywhere. I miss those places - the places Chuck Berry still sings about.
As for the election my sense is the NDP will take it despite the Liberal leadership having motivated their supporters a little in the campaign's final days. The Liberal candidate sure as fuck has not motivated anybody. She has about as much talent as the Canuck's black aces.
The NDP candidate has a little human touch at least. Just enough to make quite a lot of people sad if more Liberal supporters than I expect to bother to vote.
The Green has broad support in the community. Broader than you might think. Broad enough to place a close third. Broad enough to give both the Liberals and the NDP reason work harder than ever in the next election preventing yet another incursion into their two party turf war.
4 comments:
I grew up in POCO when population was 8000. Hard to recognize the place.
Back in the day at election time our street was very Orange.
Too many people now. Too many cars.
Good work Mr. Beer. Looks like Green Joe doubled percentage from the last vote and got people thinking they have a choice to not vote for a cog, but a real voice that will make things happen. Yeah, got respect for the NDP candidate but very wary she will be welcomed to the machine. Maybe not, and they will take notice like you said. Joe's gear ratio doesn't fit any machine but it sure can drive one, or at least give it power assist. Xenia Taverna (in the other Coquitlam riding).
I talked to some Co-Co oldtimers in my travels there. There are not many left. They were NDP as a matter of fact. They once enjoyed living in a forested valley. You have to drive miles up the mountain to find that now.
Joe's numbers indicate an appetite for another choice besides the Big Two in BC. It will take persistence and a bigger, more active membership to get where the Greens want to go. They are a long ways out of the gate but even further from the finish line. All they have to do is keep electing politically attractive leaders, recruiting quality candidates like Joe and start presenting thoughtful campaigns people feel,they can get behind.
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