Life is a highway…

Posted on by Laila

and I’m on it again til the 21st…next Wednesday.

Sorry no pics yet, but the captain of this ship has had to organize and ready for the next round, not an easy task with all these kids about. It has been a culture shock coming back to real life, and I yearn to be back on a schedule dictated only by the need for sleep and hunger.

A few parting thoughts for you.

Gregor Robertson is an idiot. Although I don’t live in Vancouver, I worried for the residents when he was elected, because all I saw was the pretty face he campaigned on and not one bit of substance. Just my two cents here, but this is what you get when you elect a pretty boy who likes getting his own way. Clearly, his ego has quite outgrown any ability  he had to serve the city of Vancouver’s residents, and I suspect ” those hacks” will elect his pretty ass out given the chance.

The city of Courtenay has the friendliest residents in the world. Seriously.  And the best Travelodge ever. I love it there so much I wish I could live there. Goes for most of the mid to north island residents.

This HST will be the death of Campbell. I’ve talked to a lot of people while away, and everyone has felt the impact, including myself. The HST came into play during my time on the island, and in addition to a lot of confusion for retailers as to what is HST exempt or not, it simply adds to the bill in a nasty way when you see HST at the bottom.  I talked to a local small corner store owner whose rent went up $132 every month, yet his sales have gone down, oddly enough, on stamps even. He told me that people come in, hold things up and ask if it has HST or not. If it does, they put it back and buy something else.

That’s it for now, see you in a week. Enjoy the sun, the surf and don’t buy anything with hst.

7 thoughts on “Life is a highway…”

  1. I don’t have much sympathy for retailers. It seems to me they were not as vocal as 700,000 plus BCers.More than half of my London Drug purchases were HST applied. Everytime I leave a store I am angier. A few years ago London Drugs had a petition in their store fighting an electronic levy the stupid recording industry wanted. Why was London Drugs vocal over the HST? Prices haven’t gone down either!
    So yes, little retailer now you know what us shoppers go through.

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  2. The Island is a great place Laila glad you have enjoyed what we who live here do , now if we could just kick Campbell into the water and make him swim back and revoke his island passport life would truly get better :}
    I do agree with HST hatred islanders are angry in mid area as well its hurting us far more than helping and it just makes Recall all that more likely to succeed.

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  3. Ditto on the south island! Yesterday the TC published Ida Chong’s per diem lunches on us. $6,000. we bought. And she lives 10 minutes away from the leg, which sits for, what 2 months a year? I didn’t have $6,000 left for the year after paying the rent and hydro!!!

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  5. Why is it the sepia socialists have to be so damn polite? The right, the left and the snot green in this province call each other every name in the book in private. I bet even Bill van der Zalm has called Gordon Campbell a motherfucker in unguarded moments. What I would like to see is an uncensored political debate in this province, this world. When every utterance is guarded what do we ever learn about what politicians really think? That is why we have the HST and why we probaly deserve it. We do not expect uncensored honesty from any body. How can we then be shocked by surprise policy turns?

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  6. I love the North and Mid Island! Heck, I love the entire Island! Spent 8 years in Sointula and Port McNeill. Have family in CR, Courtenay, Black Creek, Port Alberni, Nanaimo, Victoria. Enjoy your time off Laila!

    Glad to hear I’m not the only one doing that. Since July 1st I am very HST conscious. Told my hubby it was funny; when we had GST and PST I didn’t really care. Once they combined it and expanded it I bent over backwards to not give either one of those governments one extra dime! Recall in the Fall can’t come soon enough for me.

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  7. Hello all! Glad to see you all checking in, and I am back with a full accounting of the last month for you within a day or so, photos included.

    I love the whole island, but now that I’ve spent a good amount of time in the central north area, I could see myself living there. I really felt quit melancholy coming home today, as if I were actually leaving my home!

    I did see a lot of hurting over there, a hell of a lot of for sale signs on homes, and not a lot of tourists around. More to come soon!

    Cheers!

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