Back to School and Back to the Polls

Things were looking pretty good in the Summer and when it wasn't smoky, we spent lots of time outside with the girls. We got out and caught up with a lot of people that we hadn't seen in a very long time. It was nice to meet with a number of you in person! We enjoyed a couple months of that before preparation for the school year began. Now, with case numbers in Alberta rising again, we've shifted back to Video Meetings while we go through this fourth wave of the pandemic. We're hopeful that it won't last long and we won't go through the very hard times that similar sized States like Alabama, Louisiana and Kentucky have experienced1. Natalie and I have friends who work in health care in some of the USA's hardest hit regions so it's been eye opening hearing their stories. Fingers crossed that Western Canada's recent spike will be short-lived and we'll get back to where we were soon.

So, not only are we dealing with a fourth wave of COVID-19, we're going back to the polls. From what I can see, very few Canadians wanted to go into an election and very few are happy about the timing of it. This could turn out to be a very big mistake for Prime Minister Trudeau. While he certainly isn't a very popular leader, he did look to be comfortably ahead at the time he called for an election. That lead quickly evaporated. As I write this, Conservative leader, Erin O'Toole, has the lead over his Liberal Party opponent2. If he can maintain that, we may be seeing a new government on September 20th (which just happens to be my 40th birthday!).

We obviously don't have the same amount of time to prepare for an election here in Canada as in the US but as I did with the election down there, I'll leave you with a fact-checking site which I find useful. This one from AFP has been rated as an unbiased source of information:

https://factcheck.afp.com/afp-canada

Like I've been saying recently, don't throw stones. Vote.

On behalf of Natalie and myself, we wish you all the best going into the School Year. Our hearts are with all of those who were impacted by the wildfires in BC and to anyone who had a hard summer with everything going on in the world. We're here if you need anything from us so please, feel free to reach out.

Bryce A. Borden


1John Hopkins University: - https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region

2CTV News: - https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/federal-election-2021/o-toole-a-political-freight-train-as-conservatives-take-clear-lead-nanos-1.5572456