Interviewed by Michael Scoular.
Since many students will be voting for the first time, what would you describe as the role of municipal politics? What can city councillors actually do?
Well in my opinion, yes they’re there to look after the nuts and bolts of our roads and sewers and the rest of it, but my principle reason of being at the municipality is to enhance the quality of life for the people and to problem-solve. I would think 80 per cent of my work is done on the phone, in the street, or on the computer with individuals or small groups of people. And I think in a way it’s liaising all the community facilities together so that even if you can’t help, you can tell people where they can get help. So that’s my feeling about it, but yes, you do the administration as well. It’s not a business, you obviously have to be business-like financially, but the big part of the job is helping people to enjoy living in Mission, basically.
Who do you view as your constituents?
Everybody in Mission! And whether they’ve got the vote or not.
How will you receive the views of the entire population instead of just those most active around City Hall?
Whenever I go downtown shopping for things, people always stop me [and] say, “Hey Jenny, have you got a minute?” And I always make sure I have got a minute. And again, my phone number is out there, my email is out there, and I have a rule that I always respond within 24 hours if I get a message. So really it’s just having a pair of ears open, and being ready to listen. It’s a full-time job.
Are you doing anything to address the lack of student interest in local politics?
Talking to youngsters, listening to youngsters, right? I’m very interested in getting some student organizations going in our high schools and even our elementary schools. I did do a couple civics talks to elementary schools, age six and seven, about the three levels of government, what the difference is and what each one does, and I was amazed, the children of that age, the intelligent questions they came up with. Really, more intelligent than many adult meetings to be frank! So I think particularly this generation of young people are probably better informed than earlier groups and less gullible and want to know. And like all young people, they want to solve it all now. I think it’s very, very important and I’ve been pushing for Mission to form a shadow cabinet made up of teenage students so that they follow what we do on council. Maybe every now and then have a council meeting with a real agenda and see what conclusions they would have come to.
Why did you choose not to run on a slate this time, and what do you think this means for the organization of municipal politics?
I’m going to be careful here because one of my rules is not to do negative campaigning. But last time through was my fourth run and I was invited into the group, I did think about it and my understanding was that it was a group of individuals who shared some basic ethics concerning financial good sense, avoiding waste of money, being open and transparent and accountable, not doing everything behind closed doors. But a group of individuals nevertheless.
It’s not how it turned out to be. First year was fine, then after that CRMG meetings became dominated by one particular individual to the point where it was getting that if you didn’t agree with him, you were held down. Some of the attitudes and particularly the discussion on strategies for the next election worried me to the point where I came to the conclusion that I can’t run again with this group. So therefore I will have to resign because I can’t sit here and listen to them planning their strategies for the next election when I have no intention of running with them. So it got to that point.
Probably took six or eight months to make my mind up, because I was trying to get the group back on what I thought was the track. I don’t know whether I was mistaken in the first place or whether things actually changed, but I came to the conclusion that I didn’t share the same values, so the only honest thing to do was resign from the group, but I did tell them very clearly that I would continue to do my job as an independent councillor and would give [Ted Adlem] the support due as the mayor. I would respect the mayor’s position. Though at one point four of us did vote for lack of confidence in him because of some particular statements and actions that he had refused to change when we pleaded privately, so our only option then was to take it into the public arena and pass that notion. But even so, one has to say you support the mayor when he’s being mayor. It’s rather a wordy explanation, but it’s not a simple issue and I am concerned now looking at the new CRMG on what they’ve been publishing, because it is so negative and so, sorry I have to use the word, vicious in some areas. I’m very glad I’m not part of it. I don’t think I could have sustained being part of it through this election campaign.
How did what you were doing at city council change over the past three years compared to what your initial goals were during the last campaign?
I wanted to do much more helping people to enjoy life. There is a group still there within CRMG that believes that the municipal business is doing our roads and fire safety and sewers and we shouldn’t be mixed up with any sort of social services. Well, I’m sorry, but that’s what it’s really all about, isn’t it? I mean, yes we need roads, we need sewers, etc. but what is the good of having a perfectly built city if the people are not living full lives? So that is a tremendous rent for me. I’m interested in, it sounds like a cliché, but bettering the lives of our citizens.
Do you have a specific project you want to prioritize or bylaw you want to change?
I want us to be doing a lot more for youth. While I don’t grudge anything we are doing for seniors, and I’m certainly going to be supporting a seniors’ centre, the growth point in Mission is young, I think it’s 19 per cent of our citizens are under 14. So now we should be really looking, if I look at the municipal grant package, we are doing much more for seniors than we are for the young, and I think we should be leveling that out.
Young people need a safe, young, attractive hang-out place. They shouldn’t be hanging out on corners and on sets of stairs, right? I have 18 grandchildren — they very often just want somewhere to go and hang out with other teenagers. We do have the drop-in lounge at the leisure centre, but it’s not adequate, it’s not enough, it may not be the sort of ambiance our young people actually want. We did succeed in making the arts council fee for service effectively a bursary or subsidizing machine in that we said we would pay two-thirds of the cost of any young person or senior taking art classes, because we wanted to open up the opportunities for those groups to learn and to participate in art. So instead of just giving them a lump of money to do anything with to do with the arts council, we said “No we want this money used to subsidize the cost of classes for those two groups. And that’s been very successful, they have opened up a lot more particularly for children.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
