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OUR VIEW: Time to roll up your sleeves

We say: The victorious North Island candidate has work to do

So, it’s all over but the crying. Actually, it’s hard to imagine anyone has been worked up enough about this year’s provincial election to cry, although party diehards on either side will be shaken up by the result, whatever it may be.

It’s still a sad reality of newspaper publishing that we are unable to have last night’s results of the North Island riding vote in today’s community paper; our daily will have. But we go to press before the polls close and come out on the street after everybody has gone to bed. But our companion website was on the scene as the results came in and we urge you to head over to www.campbellrivermirror.com for our coverage.

Whatever the results, this had to be one of the most sedate election campaigns we’ve seen in British Columbia. It was certainly the case in the North Island riding. Very few fireworks and no raging issues dominated the headlines. What does that say about our riding? It’s difficult to tell. Of course, provincial issues are North Island issues. We’re as concerned about economic development, tanker traffic, honesty in government as much as anybody in the province.

Perhaps no candidates really managed to capture North Island concerns enough. In the Campbell River area, in particular, we’ll still be focused on finding ways to generate jobs in this region. We will still be wrestling with how to accommodate salmon farming in a climate of misinformation and competing scientific claims. We are left wondering if forestry can ever become the mainstay it once was.

And we will continue to worry whether our young people will be able to work in this highly liveable region and raise their own families and realize their dreams without having to move or commute to Alberta.

Congratulations winning candidate, if your tears are from the joy of victory, dry your eyes and get to work. Now your real job has begun.