As the first decade of the 21st Century winds its way down to an ignominious end, it's easy to slip into a reflective mood about the significant events of the past 10 years and the significant events that may lie ahead.

Let's go back to the future first. Despite the fact that it's still the only Superpower in the world and its armed forces span the globe, sometime towards the end of the next decade, the Excited States of America will be knocked off its vaunted throne and become merely a power. The adjective "super" can be thrown into the ash can of history.

And this may not be a bad thing.

No empire lasts forever and the longer they last the more corrupt they become. Think of Nero burning down Rome, Louis XIV, and the decadent "Sun King," who paved the way for the French Revolution or Hitler taking cyanide in his bunker in Berlin. The bigger they are, the harder they fall and the U.S. is no exception.

We can only hope that when the U.S. is knocked off its pedestal it doesn't take a lot of the rest of us with it. We in the West have rudely exploited the Developing World for the past 100 years. They may just be a tad angry with us and when they see Uncle Sam falling to his knees they may exact their revenge or as Louis XIV said: "Après moi le deluge."

And who will take over after the inevitable U.S. decline? Most think China and not without reason. The inscrutable Chinese seemed to have mastered the incredible trick of making communism and capitalism sleep in the same bed without tearing each other apart. Au contraire! The two contradictory systems seem to have become a match made in heaven in China at least with the result that China is rapidly taking over the American economy and is poised to soon become the biggest economy in the world.

When President Richard Nixon made the first presidential trip to China in 1972 do you seriously think for one minute it crossed his mind that one day China would own the United States? Well it happened. The Chinese control American debt markets now, and if they wanted to, they could bring the American economy to its knees. But they don't want to and neither does Wal-Mart.

And let's look back too. Starting with Canada itself, surely the biggest political development over the past decade was the implosion of the federal Liberal Party, once the National Governing Party. Thanks to the Liberal demise, we got Prime Minister Stephen Harper, one of the most cunning political strategists in Canadian history and one of the least suited temperamentally to be prime minister.

And where does that lead to? Perpetual minority governments for Canada unless the Liberals and the NDP do the strategically obvious thing and unite giving Canada a two-party system like most advanced countries in the world.

Then there's British Columbia where politics is commonly called a "blood sport" and we've had a long list of colourful, if not zany premiers, stretching from Amor de Cosmos to W.A.C. "Wacky" Bennett and "Fannntastic Bill Vander Zalm. Be this as it may, no one can deny the last decade was clearly the decade of Gordon "Gordo" Campbell and his Liberal (really Socred) government.

Now, I've been one of those who have thought for a while that we saw the last of both Campbell and Carole James in the last election campaign. After all, both of them are getting long in the tooth politically, and when you consider the 50 per cent turnout in the last election – the lowest in the province's history – it says to me the electorate doesn't like either leader.

But both Campbell and James are adamant they're going to run again. We'll have to see what their respective party caucuses say about that.

And finally we get to Cranbrook where memory of the most momentous political event of the decade has barely begun to fade away and probably won't fade away for a long time. I'm talking about the East Hill Boundary referendum, of course, a photo finish, if there ever was one.

In some ways, the less said about the referendum the better so all I will say is it marked the first time a significant portion of the people of Cranbrook said "no" to their political masters. All who aspire to political office in the Key City should take heed of that no.

It may mark the beginning of a trend.