With the New Year now more than three weeks old, I finally get the chance to sit down and pound out a column. It’s about time.
This new year, 2012, is shaping up to be quite the year. Then again, don’t all years hold myriad promises to be “the year to end all years”?
Well, yes, they do. But this year is likely going to live up to that claim, considering what’s already happened and what is due to happen.
Looking first at what we know will happen in 2012, he have to look to the southeast and the city of Edmonton. In particular, the provincial legislature and the changes that may be coming.
Already, as broke in December, we know Ken Kowalski is done with politics. This leaves a gaping hole in the Tory party, one that will become closer to being filled this Saturday when party members choose who will run for a seat in Edmonton when the next election is called.
What we don’t know is whether or not that person will even have the chance to carry on Kowalski’s legacy. In any election, anything can happen.
Will the new candidate be elected simply because he or she is a Tory? Or was it Kowalski’s name recognition that led to the Tories’ success at the polls? Will Link Byfield or Trudy Grebenstein break through to claim Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock? And more importantly, will this election spell the end of the third longest-serving government in Canadian history?
We’ll find out in March. Or April. Or May.
As for what we’ve already seen happen this year, there’s nothing like coming into work after a weekend off to read about the unexpected death of PHRD board chair Doug Fleming. That was a shock.
I knew he’d been away from a number of meetings in the past few months, but when I saw him at the Jan. 11 meeting, he seemed fine.
To see on the front page that he had died only the day before, I was stunned. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be his family and colleagues, to have him one day and then suddenly he’s gone from them.
My sincerest condolences go out to his family.
On a personal level, I seem to have settled on a New Year’s resolution. I originally had three on my mind, but two of them have already fallen by the wayside.
The third, to reduce my steadily increasing heft, if off to a start. I wouldn’t call it a rip-roaring start, but going for a run every other day is a starting point at least. We’ll see how things go, but it takes some dedication when you consider it’s really cold outside these days.
Who knows what else this year will bring. Will the Mayans be right? Ask me again on Dec. 22.
