BY BILL PHILLIPS
Happy New Year!
Time for Bill’s Amazing Predictions for 2024. Predictions you can bet the farm on … as long as you were looking to get out of the agriculture business.
Prediction No. 1 – Fernie city council will pick the 902 Second Avenue location for the new firehall. It’s the path of least resistance, at least in terms of getting started. The Prentice Park site would mean levelling some ball fields and replacing them somewhere else.
I still believe a highway location would be best and my suggestion of where the Community Centre is now is, obviously, not a path of least resistance.
The city did look at the empty lot next to the Red Apple a few years back. A report was generated and everything. They ditched the idea for reasons not clear to me.
Prediction No. 2 – There will be a provincial election in the fall. I know it’s already scheduled, but it’s still a prediction. Who will win? Come on now, that’s tougher nut to crack.
Give the United Party and the upstart Conservative Party credit for getting candidates in place now, giving them a year or more to unofficially campaign. I don’t see the NDP getting candidates in place yet, which could hurt them.
However, I don’t see a seismic shift in B.C. politics just yet.
United Party MLA Tom Shypitka won the Kootenay East riding with 57.90 per cent of the vote in 2020 and, as mentioned about lack of seismic shifts, don’t expect that result to change.
Prediction No. 3 – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will go for a ‘walk in the snow.’ Hold on, there is no snow … darn.
Prediction No. 4 – Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre will blame the lack of snow on the federal carbon tax.
Prediction No. 5 – Political wannabe’s everywhere who are looking to upset a current elected official will promise to get rid of the carbon tax. Oops … sorry, that one’s already true.
Prediction No. 6 – NDP leader Jagmeet Singh will pop his head out next month and not see his shadow, which means another 36 months without a federal election.
Prediction No. 7 – Alberta Premier Danielle Smith will blame Ottawa for the lack of snow and demand all snow that falls in the rest of Canada be trucked to Alberta ski hills (and Highway 22). It’s only fair Alberta gets its fair share, after all.
Prediction No. 8 – Premier David Eby will stand head and shoulders above the competition … that is, of course, unless federal housing Minister Sean Fraser enters provincial politics.
Prediction No. 9 – It won’t be a boring year.
Bill Phillips is an award-winning columnist with 35 years of experience in community journalism.