I woke up to snow this morning. I could have predicted this would happen, had anyone bothered to ask.
My husband and I are just back from Vancouver where we basked in the sunshine and enjoyed green grass and flowers for five days.
It was too much to expect that sunshine would follow us home, as did my hay fever.
After all, don’t we always have a spring storm to welcome the snowbirds home? Why should we be any different?
Listening to political rhetoric in this province over the past few years, I had come to believe people with Saskatchewan connections always went to Alberta.
Read Also
Agriculture needs to prepare for government spending cuts
As government makes necessary cuts to spending, what can be reduced or restructured in the budgets for agriculture?
They’ve also gone to British Columbia. We met many former residents and people with Saskatchewan connections.
We were in town for the British Columbia and Yukon Community Newspapers Association annual meeting and awards, and even the comedian who entertained at the gala dinner had Saskatchewan connections.
Another strong connection to home was the political thinking of the people we met. There, like here, cynicism with the system and with those in it is rampant.
A provincial election looms in B.C. and everyone we talked to agreed the present scandal-ridden government will be gone. The general thinking is that the Liberals will replace this government because, in the words of one person, “that’s all there is.”
People obviously weren’t happy with this option, and were even more unhappy when talk turned to the federal scene.
If anything, those we talked to had an even bleaker view of Canada’s political future than exists in Saskatchewan.
Whether that is a function of being on the other side of the mountains, or of having had three recent premiers leave office in disgrace, I don’t know. Nor do I know what could give them, or us, more confidence in the political system.
At one point, I suggested tongue-in-cheek that we need another Pierre Trudeau to lend some charisma to our political process. An icy stare was my reply, so I guess not.
Back at the awards dinner, we heard Brent Butt of Tisdale, Sask., joke about Saskatchewan’s wide open spaces where you can stand on high ground and see what the weather is like in most of the rest of the province.
We laughed along with everyone else, but with a sense of affection.
We may not have green grass and daffodils blooming in the garden in April, but this is home, where allergy season is still a month away.
