Are our memories getting shorter or is there something more at work here?

Just after New Year's, British Columbians were indignant to learn that Premier Gordon Campbell was arrested for drunk driving while vacationing in Maui. As Maui police reported, his rented SUV was swerving all over a two-lane highway while travelling at least 40 kilometres an hour over the speed limit. One officer at the scene said he detected "an overwhelming odour of liquor" on his breath, and that his speech was slurred. His roadside breath sample was 0.161, more than twice the legal limit of 0.08 in both Hawaii and B.C.

Back home, Campbell appeared ashamed and contrite. In a tearful apology to the people of the province, he admitted making "a terrible, terrible mistake." He vowed to stop drinking and seek counselling-promises he seems to have kept. But he refused many demands, including some emanating from within his own Liberal caucus, that he resign.

And so once more, long-suffering British Columbians seemed faced with the grim prospect of witnessing yet another premier try to govern in scandal and disgrace.

"There's a question mark whether he is able to withstand the stress that comes from the public and his own internal stress in terms of damage to his self-esteem," University of Victoria political scientist Norman Ruff told the Vancouver Sun. "The pressure is enormous."

"He is now premier in name only, clinging to office," added Adrian Dix, an adviser to B.C.'s former NDP government.

But if Ipsos-Reid is to be believed, such predictions were wrong. Just after Campbell's arrest, a poll it conducted pegged support for the Liberals among decided voters at 34 per cent. Yet a more recent poll by the same firm put that figure at 44 per cent-or back to where it was before any of this occurred. Campbell's personal approval rating also rose four percentage points to 42 per cent over the same period.

Said Ipsos-Reid vice-president Kyle Braid, "To a degree, it reflects that British Columbians have seen a softer side of the premier, and they like the premier more than they did a few months ago," he said.

Of course, no one should conclude from this that people have forgotten Campbell's gross error of judgment. But even so, I suspect this unexpected response indicates British Columbians themselves may have developed "a softer side" as well.

This is not the same province I knew when I moved here 12 years ago. For most of the 1980s, B.C. was Canada's economic powerhouse. Money and people from across Canada and around the Pacific Rim were flowing in. Industries were booming. Housing prices soared. British Columbians-as best exemplified by Expo 86-were proud and confident. But in the course of the 1990s, the economy nose-dived, leaving many "property rich and cash poor:" whatever wealth they had was tied up in the high cost of housing and land. B.C. is now officially a have-not province. This change in economic fortunes has been humbling, if not downright humiliating.

Could this account in part for the public's somewhat more charitable attitude toward their chastened premier?

But there is more. Statistics Canada's latest Canadian Social Trends quarterly reported that while church attendance nationwide declined by five per cent in the past decade, it actually rose in B.C. by two per cent-and in Vancouver by four per cent. Among "Protestants" (no breakdown by denomination is given), the increase was five per cent provincially and nine per cent for Vancouver. While the influx of Christian immigrants would certainly account for much of this growth, the survey shows it is also occurring among people born here.

In other words, there are at least a few more people in this province who would presumably seek to practise in their lives the compassion, grace and mercy modelled by Christ.

That said, it would be wildly presumptuous to conclude that most British Columbians are any less indifferent to religion than they were 10 years ago. But perhaps that is beginning to change. I do think it is fair to say that in Gordon Campbell's newfound humility they may have glimpsed a reflection of themselves.