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Editorial: B.C. Day holiday timed just right

The B.C. Day long weekend arrives at the perfect time of year for getting out and enjoying B.C.
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Nanaimo's Mt. Benson Regional Park is one of any number of places to go to enjoy B.C.'s great outdoors on the B.C. Day long weekend.

Maybe it’s coincidence and maybe it isn’t, but the B.C. Day long weekend arrives at the perfect time of year for getting out and enjoying B.C.

Whether we’re Beautiful B.C. or Super, Natural B.C. or the Best Place on Earth, well, we’ll leave that up to the marketing experts to decide. We do know there’s a lot to like about British Columbia and that we’re lucky to live here.

The long weekend is a great time to explore the province and some of the best of B.C. is right here. We’re situated between the seaside and the forest; we can choose amenities and activities or peace and quiet.

Visitors from around the world understand our province’s charms – tourism indicators are pretty much up across the board in 2016, according to Destination British Columbia figures. As of last month, international tourism to B.C. was up 14 per cent for the year. In Nanaimo, hotel occupancy was up 5.5 per cent, airport visits were up 17.3 per cent and in the region, ferry ridership was up 4.4 per cent.

And we don’t even need to stay in a hotel or take a plane or a boat; rather, all it takes is a whim to go discover some new perspective of our province.

While the views are pretty, B.C. isn’t a perfect place. We’re only beautiful if there is beauty within. We should hope for a more compassionate society, a more robust and diverse economy, a more fairly funded education system, better accessibility to healthcare, clean air and water, jobs, homes, dignity and quality of life for all. Now is the time to vocalize our wants and needs, because with the next B.C. provincial election just nine months away, political leaders are listening, or should be.

Some see the bits of B.C. that are broken and think we should break away, and become the province of Vancouver Island. There are a lot of flaws in that reasoning – for instance, then we might have to work on B.C. Day, and that would be a drag.

Because B.C. is beautiful and super and natural and the best place we know, and it’s worth celebrating.