By Joe Johnson (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: November 28, 2012
Bruce Banman became the upset winner of the Abbotsford by-election on November 19, 2011. He took office the following December, and he now looks back fondly on a year spent in office, recounting big events, challenges, and talking about what he hopes to accomplish with the rest of his term.
Some might say you weren’t the conventional choice as Mayor, but on November 19, 2011 the residents of Abbotsford found you to be the right choice. Looking back, how did you win?
Well, basically it was the water issue more than anything else. I was on the right side of the water issue. And I think I hit a chord with people … a lot of times people don’t necessarily vote for something, they vote against other issues. I happened to be, out of the other candidates, the other credible choice. Or palatable choice.
There was water, there was the Fraser Valley Regional District, there was the budget. I think the other thing is whenever we get into tough economic times, that’s the biggest risk for anyone that’s in politics to maintain being in the position they are. The public gets scared and they want change. I was as probably as surprised as anyone.
I recall watching one of the debates and you broke into a song …
[Laughs] Yes I did.
I sat down with some friends, and we knew one question which was the blue sky question, so to speak, the pie in the sky – “If you get elected, not necessarily what would you build, but if you could what’s the one project you’d like to see?” … so my particular project that I thought would be a theatre.
But the city was broke. I’m a chiropractor, and I was talking with a patient in my practice and I said, “Well, you know, if I was a rich man…” and out came the song. And I thought, “Well maybe I should sing this.”
It was about 50/50, and I figured I had nothing to lose so what the heck, why not? And the auditorium erupted with applause and it just sort of set me apart as being different.
There are a lot of construction and infrastructure projects going on right now. What’s the city building up for and is this signaling accelerated growth in population?
I think some of it is catch-up, to be honest with you. This city has seen unprecedented growth for year after year after year. It was in 2010 that things sort of leveled off and slowed.
Even with that, we have Highstreet Shape Properties which is building the largest mall that’s been built between Vancouver and Calgary in the last 30 years. It’s 600,000 square feet – it’s massive. There’s more concrete being put into that than was put into BC Place. As with other things, it’s the residential that has slowed down. That gives the city a chance to catch up.
And the two major infrastructure projects that we built were the overpass at Clearbrook and the overpass at Marshall Road, which is close to the university. That was because the governments opened up their wallets to try and stimulate the economy.
And the other infrastructure program that we’re working on—our water system—has got to the point where it’s worn out in certain areas. … We’re replacing on an as-needed basis.
The Abbotsford Heat, they’ve actually been selling out some games this year …
I’m thrilled that the Heat games have sold out. When the Oiler franchise came to town, actually, that sold out almost every hotel room in Abbotsford. I bumped into people … one guy flew up from California to watch, because of course Gretzky ended up in California. And another fellow drove from Saskatoon. Oiler fans, they’re crazy.
But I’m glad they came here – it added a lot of excitement to the arena. It was the first time in history that we had pre-sold the games, and there were no walk-up tickets available. Abbotsford had scalpers, for crying out loud! Who would have ever imagined we’d have scalpers. And so maybe there were a couple of students that decided to go from business school and tried to do a littler entrepreneurial work and get some tickets and make a lift on them. I’m thrilled with that.
However, I think we need to be cautious that this is just because of the NHL lockout. We need to work hard to make sure that every person that goes through that building has a pleasant experience, has a good guest experience
The venue actually, the entertainment has come along amazingly. We’ve had sold-out concerts. Country western singer [Eric] Church is coming, and he’s doing very well. We were ranked as number two in Canada, per capita, for that arena for the type of entertainment we get, and 13 overall in the world.
Quite frankly, what really is keeping us down is the lack of attendance in hockey games.
You were bald, at least temporarily, this year …
Yes, I was bald!
Probably one of the watering holes that students would know would be Finnegan’s across the street. The owner of that establishment, Mr. Esposito, somehow corralled me with some of the wives from the hockey team and said, “Would you shave your head to have the funds raised to go to the local hospital cancer ward?”
I’ve lost both an uncle and I’ve lost a sister to cancer … and if I were to tell you I wasn’t scared about it I’d be liar.
And he shaved my head, and in part we were able to raise $30,000.
What’s your relationship like with the university and what kinds of things do you work together on?
The university and the city have always had a pretty good relationship. Anything we can do to help the University, we will.
One of the things is that they have an agricultural program. Agriculture in the Fraser Valley is over $2 billion to the GDP. So it’s important that we try and find crops that grow well here and do best farm practices. And the university, especially the research departments, are good at that.
They also have a trades program that they work with. So we have Cascade Aerospace that needs great technicians to work there, to work on those Hercules jets. So the university says,
“What is it that we need here?” and tries to provide those careers. It’s not just getting a degree any more – you actually get a degree where you have a high likelihood of getting a great job.
I gotta tell you, I love Mark Evered. He’s a great guy. He’s very much involved. I think he’s actually one of the few guys that might be at more things than I am. He’s all over the city – you should be very proud of him, and you should be very proud of your university. It’s going to do great things and it always has produced great people.
And if there were unlimited funds, to go back to that question from the debate …
If I were a rich man, what would I do? It’s interesting because one of the talks that we’re having with the university is that one of the dreams is to have a performing arts centre. The city needs it, the university needs it.
Performance gives people a sense of self assurance, it gives you confidence, it challenges you. I think that in this world especially, we don’t see enough live stuff. We don’t see enough live performances, whether it be one of your buddies playing a guitar in a little coffee shop somewhere, or going to a live performance or a concert of some nature, or a live play. I don’t think we see enough of that. And there’s a special interaction that happens when you’re in with an audience watching a live performance that just doesn’t happen on a TV, it doesn’t happen in a movie theatre quite the same.
But right now, until times gets a little better, until we get our house in order a little better, it’s on the back burner. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try and save a few shekels towards that in the future. … So for me it would still be the same thing I sang about.
