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"A found poem is made up of lines of non-poetic text that someone else already wrote." -- Katie Haegele
Premier Gordon Campbell -- poet laureate of B.C.?
Surprising idea, but when Campbell addressed the Union of B.C. Municipalities on Friday, an astonishing political poetry emerged from his 8,500 words of prepared text.
The premier said everything here, but the order of sentences has been rearranged and the context intentionally removed. The results? Poetic justice:
I serve as the Premier of the province.
A long time ago, eight years, I came here.
And then it was over as fast as a zip-line ride. Bang, it was
done.
I heard the message loud and clear. I totally understand it. In
fact, I embrace it.
I can tell you this, and I can tell you with a degree of
confidence that you can take to the bank.
The great irony is the only way that I can convince some
people I was telling the truth is to tell them a lie.
I'm not going to do that.
Of course there were some people that said you'll never do
it. You shouldn't try.
Some will always say that that is too ambitious.
Most people will say to me. "I'm working a lot harder. I don't
feel like I'm getting any further ahead."
So we've done pretty well over the last eight years.
It's hard to believe we did as well as we did sometimes.
A young man came up to me maybe four or five weeks ago and said, "You know, I love that
Canada Line." I said, "Well, that's good."
He said, "Do you know how much parking costs?" I said: "I have an idea."
Any of you guys drive the Sea to Sky Highway to get up here?
When I come to Whistler I never get in a car again once I stop.
But now is no time to stop. It's no time for us to feel tired.
Not everyone can do that. But many, many of us can do that if we work together to do it.
I can tell you it costs us something not to do it as well, and equally important, it costs our
families lots if we don't do it and we don't do it well.
We threw the HST up in the air.
It'll be integrated, it'll be focused, it'll
be relentless and it'll be well funded.
And waiting won't save us a penny.
Should we do it? Shouldn't we do it?
I get one vote.
Some will say that we shouldn't reach
too high. I say we should reach high.
We will be commissioning three totem
poles on the lawns of the Legislature.
We have three pine beetle action
committees. They call themselves the
"three-backs."
Anyone ever heard of the gold rush in British Columbia?
You don't have gold medals if you don't have mining.
One last thing: Does anyone know what's happening in 2015? ![[Tyee]](/design-article.thetyee.ca/ui/img/yellowblob.png){kind=small}
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