By G.D. Maxwell
Okay, now Im worried.
Last week it seemed as though the whole Olympics thing was more or less in the bag. I was convinced, not to say fatalistic, the Games were ours to lose. Like most Whistleratics I talk to, I was already designing a Web site to sublet my suite for the run of the Olympics at a price guaranteed to support me comfortably in my retirement. With those wacky North Koreans threatening to launch the Nuclear Winter Games and the truculent Euros overreaching for five out of the next six Games, tiny, perfect Whistler seemed a pretty good bet.
Now Im not so sure.
Its not the length of the highway thats got me in a lather after offhanded comments by the chief evaluation wanker. No matter how long the Sea-to-Sky highway is and whoda thought Vancouver was too far away it seems longer in the morning after coffee with no comfort stations and a broken toilet on the bus.
Besides, like the man said, pump $600 mil into it and itll seem much shorter. Which brings up an interesting point. When Nagano was going to get the Winter Olympics they needed faster transportation to and from Tokyo. So they spent a whole lot of dough for a high speed bullet train. Everybody was thrilled. But now, with such fast, easy, high speed access, nobody stays at Naganos hotels anymore. They come for the day and bullet home for dinner. The hoteliers hate it. Not that theres any lesson we might take away from their experience.
No, the real reason I fear we may lose the Olympics can be laid at the feet of our very own Preemie, Slash Gordon. He was up Monday to ski with Big Jean, hobnob with the IOC, catch some rays and do some turns. Im sure between gladhanding, musing about privatizing the liquor store and checking out some possible casino sites, he thought all was going well. Nice sunny day, everything spit and polish, no jackknifed tanker on the road, virtual demonstrators.
Yet, without even knowing it, he was probably responsible for scuttling the bid. The evidence was right there in the Vancouver newspaper, the tabloid one, not the other one. I can never keep them straight. Standing next to Big Jean, smilin his goofy smile the one that always makes him look like hes been drinking even though I believe him when he says hes quit flashing a meaningless and trite thumbs-up, decked out in comp ski suits that had to be some of the least colourful, least fashionable, most drab threads on the slopes, there was the coup de grace.
Rear-entry boots!
Old is there any other kind rear-entry boots. Looked like maybe Salomon SX-61s or Nordicas. Boots generally seen around Whistler at the compactor or along someones deck with pansies growing out of them. Someone once said, I think it was Toulouse, the best thing you can do with rear-entry boots is let your cat have kittens in em. But there they were.
From all reports, the IOC guys were pretty good skiers. Ditto, of course, Ken Read, Pod, Jose and the rest of the entourage. What must they have thought? What sniggers and jokes must have been floating around the bus on the way back to Van.
I am so profoundly embarrassed for Premier Campbell and yes, I must fess up: I once owned a pair of rear-entry boots I cant bring myself to make fun of him. I feel a gushing wellspring of pity and empathy, much as I felt one day on a plane for an unfortunate woman who tucked her skirt into the top of her pantyhose and walked the length of the jets aisle with a tsunami of giggles swelling in her wake.
Something has to be done and Im the guy to do it. Gordons, and by extension, all of B.C.s, honour and credibility needs to be restored. Something dramatic is called for, something paradigm-shifting, something outside the box thinking, something envelope pushing. In other words, something Gordon would never have a hope in hell of coming up with himself.
And I think I know just what it is.
Legalize pot. Trademark B.C. Bud.
I know what youre thinking. Thats my solution to everything. Whatever.
But the arguments in favour of this bold, dramatic step are overwhelming, nay, irrefutable.
Lets just examine the benefits of acting decisively. First and foremost, if Gordon gathers all the media around him tomorrow and says, "Im legalizing pot in B.C.," everyone will forget entirely about his peccadillo in Maui and his boots. Given the likelihood the US government would bar him from ever entering the United States again, he wouldnt even have to show up in court later this month to hear his sentence. Itd be like those old Nazi war criminals; hed just be sentenced in absentia .
Overnight, hed be the darling of the world press. "B.C. Legalizes Pot" would push Iraq, al Qaeda, North Korea, and voter fraud in Florida off the front pages of newspapers around the world. Such a daring move would garner more publicity for our stoned mountain province than the Olympics ever could. All for free.
Not just free. Economically, legalizing the largest or second largest industry in B.C. would immediately lift us from the quagmire of being a Have-Not province to being the hippest Have-and-would-be-glad-to-share-with-you province. The potential tax revenue from B.C. Bud ought to warm the cockles of Gordons laissez faire, free-market heart.
Unemployed forestry workers would be employed.
Itd solve the fast ferry fiasco. Instead of selling em for scrap, turn em into grow-ops that deliver.
Tourism would boom. Better still, tourists would want to come back again and again because they wouldnt be able to remember whether theyd been here or not.
Of course, there would be some downsides. For one, I think legalizing pot is a federal thing. Who cares? So is Medicare but it doesnt stop Ralph and Ernie from allowing private clinics. Besides, the feds would be glad to take the transfer payments.
The RCMP might balk at the whole thing. Might have to earmark some of the tax proceeds to their benevolent association, nudge-nudge, wink-wink.
The US would go ape-shit. What with so many citizens lined up outside the B.C. border seeking refugee status or trying to bribe people going in to buy them some, theyd probably just shut us down. Like thatd work. Bush might decide to invade us. But wed have a chemical weapon that would leave the troops giggling in their gas masks.
Clearly, these are desperate times calling for desperate measures. Cmon Gordon; do the right thing. Make us proud to be British Columbians again. Dont bogart this opportunity.
Or at least lose the boots, dude.