As many have pointed out over the years, the main thing about common sense is how uncommon it often appears to be.
This week tragedy struck, for no good reason, near Ghost River (page 11) when two young Calgary men riding in the back of a pickup were killed when it went over an embankment.
Possibly this would fall under the ‘seemed like a good idea at the time’ heading, but really, riding in a truck box on a marginal road/trail with steep dropoffs alongside?
The driver, more or less safely ensconced in the cab, survived somehow, despite -30 C weather and having to make his way up a steep embankment to safety to flag down assistance.
The incident remains under investigation and police have yet to rule out alcohol or speed as contributing factors.
These deaths follow on the heels of a cyclist/vehicle incident in Canmore where a man wearing dark clothing, with no lights on his bike, at night, was struck by a pickup and ended up beneath it. In this case, passersby assisted in lifting the truck off the cyclist who was not killed.
In both cases, the situation could have been avoided – likely with an affordable set of lights on the bike, and a saner decision to ride in the cab of the truck at Ghost River. At the least, these commonsense decisions would have alleviated the severity of the situations.
It’s bad enough we have horrific situations like the Edmonton massacre, where family/domestic violence resulted in eight dead.
It’s too early in the year for so much news to be of the victims/killings/deaths variety. Let’s all use some common sense and try to get 2015 turned around.
Anderson’s revolving door stalls
Finally, Airdrie PC/Wildrose/PC MLA Rob Anderson has announced he won’t run in the next provincial election.
A politico who started out as a PC, crossed the floor to join the Wildrose and re-crossed that same floor a couple of weeks ago with eight others to rejoin the PCs, he clearly can’t make up his mind where his loyalties should lie.
We assume his wearing out the flooring in the provincial legislature has left virtually everyone in Airdrie of a conservative bent supremely disappointed. Or, maybe he’s hoping a new conservative party will arise that he could cross over to.
Last week in this space we railed against this type of floor crossing as being unfair to citizens who actually take the time to get out and vote and support a given candidate.
Being that over the years, interest in politics and voter numbers have steadily decreased, we believe this kind of floor crossing makes a mockery of our democracy and creates even more ambivalence in the process.
We’d like to think people choose to run for a provincial party as a candidate based on their own beliefs and in a party’s platform – not as simply a means to the end of holding some power in their hands or to be re-elected enough to earn a cushy retirement plan and goodbye package.
For voters, if, after they put time and thought into selecting a candidate that best fits with their beliefs, said candidate simply bails and crosses the floor to another party, what’s left other than to be disillusioned?
Again, we feel floor crossing should not be allowed. If an MLA or MP is disillusioned enough with their party to want to jump ship, they should step down and take part in a byelection where voters would again decide who they want to represent them.
