On the move!
Agh! You’re still here? My new site and weblog, ianking.ca is now up and running; new posts are building up over there, never to be mirrored here. Go! What are you waiting for? All the stuff worth keeping has been migrated over to the new server, and I don’t anticipate making any more posts here.
Bloggers and webmasters: Update your links! Simply replace vancouverscrum.blogspot.com with www.ianking.ca in your blogrolls or bookmarks to point to the new site. Old posts will remain on this server for as long as the people at Blogger/Google allow them to remain; unfortunately, I’m not going to bother to come up with any way of converting permalinks on this blog to their corresponding posts on the new site. Yes, I plead laziness. I also realize the irony of switching away from Blogger just it starts to add features that the demanding blog nerds insist upon.
Thanks for reading and linking, and see you over at ianking.ca!
—Ian King, December 13, 2004
Sunday, January 12, 2003
British Columbia premier Gordon Campbell has said that he will not resign after being arrested and charged with drunk driving while on vacation in Maui. In a tear-laced press conference, Campbell said that he had made a "terrible mistake and that I will face the consequences."
"I know I will have to re-earn your confidence" he the assembled media and television and radio audience. "This is my responsibility and I am truly sorry."
Campbell was arrested early on Friday, January 10 by Maui county police, who pulled him over after noticing how he was driving his rental vehicle. The premier failed a heel-to-toe roadside walking test, and was then taken to a police station where a breathalyzer test found that his blood-alcohol content was over the Hawaii legal limit of 80 mg/100 mL. He was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, and released several hours later. In a statement issued by his office on Friday, Campbell said that he would not contest the charge.
The premier said that he had been drinking wine at a dinner party with friends last Thursday, but that he had switched to water later in the night. He said that he had consumed three martinis and "two or three glasses of wine" that evening. Earlier in the press conference, he had said that he had "way too much to drink that night."
Campbell said that he will seek professional assistance to determine whether or not he has a drinking problem, but regardless of the outcome, "I am not going to drink again."
During the question and answer session with the media, Campbell did not directly address the question of whether or not he had committed a criminal act when he was drinking and driving. While driving under the influence of alcohol is a criminal act in Canada, it is not in Hawaii, He also sidestepped questions of whether or not he should resign, given that he had demanded the resignation of cabinet ministers in the previous NDP government when they were under investigation . Campbell risks being seen has having a double standard when it comes to standards for ministerial behaviour.
Alcohol problems have plagued the Campbell family. Campbell's brother Michael, a newspaper columnist, quit drinking several years ago, and his father, medical professor Chargo Campbell, was an alcoholic who committed suicide in 1961, when Gordon Campbell was 13.
Campbell says that he will meet with his Liberal party caucus on Thursday. He does not think that his government's agenda will be changed by this incident.
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