Harm reduced, not yet removed

On B.C. election results -- and keeping the faith.

Image rendered via Grok-2.

It’s the evening of October 19th, somewhere over the pristine darkness of rural Montana, and yours truly is furiously refreshing Twitter as the first of the B.C. provincial election results start rolling in.

On the docket is the attempted rescuing — or, at least realigning — of a province lost to the worst of New Progressive excess, where crime is legal, punishment is for evil colonizers, and the only thing that’s affordable under an escalating, government-caused cost-of-living crisis is the free heroin.

As our 23-year-old Embraer enters a line of turbulence kicked up by the “pineapple express” (read: lots of rain from Hawaii, that washed out parts of the Lower Mainland and slightly suppressed the vote) the seat totals and popular vote total bounces back and forth wildly, as if part of some gimmicky $25 ‘D-box’ movie theatre experience.

Upon landing, that unbelievable closeness remains the same.

In the cab home at midnight, it remains the same.

On October 22nd, it remains the same. Here at Substack press time (read: the four hours I have carved out here), we still await the final vote count, with critical ridings like Juan de Fuca-Malahat and Surrey City Centre able to flip the outcome.

Both the Rustad Conservatives and Eby’s addicts claim victory, but neither is yet to form government.

If I were a betting man, I’d bet on a knife-edge NDP minority — which may lead to another snap election, or worse, a coalition with the two-seat-holding Greens.

Some of the insiders and GR pros in my mentions are disconsolate, others seem to understand how far they’ve come in such short order. I side with the latter.

In fact, even after privately and independently chipping in behind the scenes on Paul Ratchford’s unsuccessful campaign to defeat Premier Eby in his home riding of Vancouver-Point Grey, I remain hopeful for the future, in a similar vein to the Western Standard’s post-mortem.

All of a sudden, public pressure got to Eby and his team, and they flip-flopped on policies that had long been central to their platform. The carbon tax went from a necessity to a negotiable, decriminalization was scaled back, and involuntary care was promoted as a viable solution for those with severe mental illness and addiction. The Conservatives, having listened to the people, were already two steps ahead by the time the NDP got the memo. 

Even if the Conservatives don't end up forming government, they will have achieved their goal of preventing another four years of NDP rule, and during his Election Night address, Rustad vowed to ensure that even if Eby remains premier, his days of running roughshod over British Columbia are over. 

From sea to shining sea, we continue to witness the slaughter of sacred, post-2015 ‘liberal’ cows.

And from tip to tail, we are witnessing the reformation of a responsible immigration consensus utterly decimated by scammers and Punjabi caste system profiteers coming out of Covid.

Rules, order, and community mean something again. Not to everyone, but to enough of you. While clattering away on my Chromebook at the VPG campaign office, I can’t even count the amount of ‘based’ Chinese moms — and major, moderate political figures who shall remain nameless — who came barging in, to lend a hand against the disaster of sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom, and with drugs, crime, and chaos firmly on their minds.

"People are afraid ... This is what is out there in our society today, and it should not be trivialized."
-John Rustad

These blissfully normal souls, who just took the political opposition to a failing status quo from a grand total of N/A, to perhaps losing by one seat, on a record advanced voter turnout, have no reason to hang their heads.

On the doors, and at the rallies on street corners, they were happy to find community, and to know their concerns were shared. They found like-minded families to play with, church services to attend, and friends to volunteer with in the not-too-distant future.

And the federal blue wave of 2025 still remains very much on schedule.

The morning after arriving back in YVR, I found myself at the gym and on a walk listening to a fascinating discussion with Canadian physician and author Gabor Mate. Mate spent much of his early career in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside treating addicts pre-'safe supply' disaster.

In his lifelong work into addictions and recovery, he has found that no one can successfully kick the can down the road when it comes to trauma and addiction, that what you’re avoiding will always grow measures worse, that to avoid these growing pains, to avoid further trauma, one often refuses to grow.

The only antidote to suffering is to have the strength to know ourselves, share ourselves, to be seen by others, and to never stop moving forward.

To hold self-pity, now, over, say, something like a coin-toss election, would be to take away responsibility and that gift of growth.

In the harm-sharing capital of Canada, on a once-left coast, there remains much to be thankful for: growing pains; expectations; the privilege of pressure.

In direct rebuke of a movement toward nothing, there is now an abundance of something.

That doesn’t sound like losing to me.

That sounds like recovery.