Dear Sir:
Whistling women and crowing hens, always come to some bad end. Just wanted to show my depth at quoting old, very old, proverbs.
Right now Christy Clark is, according to some, in serious trouble. But what about the history of women in politics?
Do I remember history? Let me see. There was a Prime Minister by the name of Mulroney who passed the helm to a lady, one Kim Campbell.
There was a premier by the name of Vander Zalm who passed the helm to a lady, one Rita Johnson.
There was a lady, one Carole James, who cleaned up a mess.
There was a Premier, by the name of Gordon Campbell, who passed the helm to a lady, one Christy Clark
That part of history is more or less correct.
In case of Mulroney-Campbell, the mess left behind by said Mulroney was too great a legacy for Campbell to bear. She lost the government, going from too many seats to a number too embarrassing to speak of.
It now appears that the man made a mess of things, the woman was left to clean up, but found, to her regret, that the mess was piled too deep.
A new broom would not suffice and when a shovel was brought in it was still inadequate. It was not the person to do the clean up, it was the enormity of the task.
More recent, and on the provincial scene, was the manure left by Vander Zalm.
This little mess was left for Rita Johnson to get it out of the flowerbeds. This task was beyond her, for a fact it was beyond every one.
Shovels were brought in early but there was no help on the shovels from the disorganized right of centre.
They actually threw the manure in front of her while she was on her knees, scrubbing.
There was the new hero, once, at least in the media’s eyes, but when the public went ballistic declaring ‘the Emperor has no clothes’ the fickle media attacked him with acid rhetoric.
He then turned the leaking raft over to Christy Clark.
She was too full of fun and bubbles to notice the raft was leaking until her knees got wet.
She is still smiling, so it may take deeper water to make her realize that the raft is going to sink.
The moral, and there is a moral, is that it takes a man to screw things up, to create a mess that no woman can clean up.
In all walks of life, the men have the party, and the woman tries to clean up the next day.
But know this too, Christy. The mess you inherited can’t be cleaned up in a day. Perhaps not even in two days.
Good luck with that.
Les Watmough,
Terrace, B.C.