Yes, the sun rose today and the burning star will set again late this afternoon. Your baby cried and your dog waited to be fed and the wind blew.
No, life as we know it did not end last night with the arrival of the contentious United States election, despite what you may have read in mainstream and social media in the past few weeks.
As these words were being written, voters in the U.S. were still casting ballots and the results were still a few hours away.
Storefronts were boarded up, ammunition was removed from some stores and a scale-proof fence was erected around the White House. While the final results will create anger on one side of another, the world does go on.
Today, the morning after the election that followed a most bizarre campaign, is perhaps a good day to reflect on two campaigns.
Both the United States and Canada are democracies, but the political differences are stark.
During the recent B.C. election campaign, insults from one party leader to another were kept to a minium. The incumbent premier was the object of criticism, not a kidnapping plot.
There were Burma shaves featuring colour-codes supporters waving signs at passing vehicles, not crowds of armed men and women lining up to stage counter-protests amid extreme tension. Cafes, restaurants and pubs were open for business, not protected behind plywood.
And we here in Kamloops are quietly waiting for about 6,000 mail-in ballots to be counted in one of the ridings, nearly two weeks after the election, with no warnings from politicians of violence on the streets and no court challenges.
We are by no means perfect, but it is worth reviewing the marked differences in the political climate of the two democracies. The U.S. is a great nation and great neighbour and we sincerely hope its gaping wounds begin to heal because the world is better when America is better.
