OUT WITH IT BY DAVE CAMPBELL

Welcome to 2012, everyone. So… this is the year many have been waiting for. My prediction is that it will come and go just like any other year, despite it being the end of the Mayan calendar. Let’s review… what happens at the end of the Roman calendar every year? Most people get hammered, wake up with a huge hangover, and make all kinds of promises to themselves to be kept for the rest of the next year. Why will it be any different at the end of 2012?

I had a bit of an epiphany a few months ago. Some of you out there have been reading my articles in the Fishbowl from the beginning, and thus have a bit of an idea of where my head is at, politically speaking. Most of my writing has focused on the macro level – the Wikileaks, New World Order, Arab Spring, FEMA camps, BP Oil, etc, etc. These are topics I’ve been chiselling away at for the last 15 years, and after a while it can turn into a bit of a rut. What I’m realizing is that ultimately we as individuals can do very little about the goings on at that level. It’s really somebody else’s chess game. The good news is that we little people actually can feel empowered politically, but here’s the catch – our best chance of success lies at the local level. Our own local community. And I’m not necessarily talking about just buying your produce from a small farmer here on SSI instead of loading up the car with stuff from Costco off island. It starts with vision. What kind of a neighbourhood do we want to live in? What does that look like? How do we make that happen? It seems rather strange to me that I can walk through the coffee shop and overhear three or four different conversations simultaneously among people in my own age group regarding Wall Street’s crimes, or Harper’s omnibus crime bill and the new prisons being built, or the US border patrol trafficking cocaine into the country, etc… yet why does it appear to be only retired people who have any form of interest in the local politics? It’s right under our noses, people! This is what I’m talking about. Where is that youthful energy which makes things happen in our community? If you ask me it seems like the most cynicism is reserved for local politics. Doesn’t it seem strange that groups of SaltSpringers regularly go off to Africa and engage in community building projects, yet at the same time many people insist our own community is falling apart? Are we going to make it through another tourist season? Is tourism all we have? If so, why? How about doing what it takes to bring in more boaters, build that damn boardwalk, increase the residential density in Ganges and thus the level of pedestrian traffic… a more thriving night life in town… these things can happen. But it takes vision. Not committees. Not talking about these things, but DOING them. We have a new crew in power in our community. This is an opportunity. How about more of us become part of the conversation about how our island will grow, not stagnate? Believe it or not, I’m actually optimistic about 2012. If we turn Salt Spring into an amazing, thriving place, it’s not even going to matter what happens “out there”.