Interviewed by Dessa Bayrock.
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?
Our job can be everything from libraries to how do we use the land process in our community, to water, sewer, waste. A lot of times what’ll happen is people will get mixed up and they’ll have provincial issues, and they’ll say, “Oh, I can do something about that.”
All I can do, at the provincial level and the federal level, is to lobby those parts of government so that we separate the issues that are municipal, provincial and federal. And I’ll just give you an example of what we can do at a municipal level. Taxes, for example: how much our taxes are going to be — house taxes. We pay for fire, police, search and rescue, that type of thing, and how much money is mandated for those types of things.
What you’re going to see in this election, as in most elections everywhere at the municipal level, is you’re going to see people being worried about the infrastructure, or revitalization of downtown. Well, I’ve got news for you: it’s not just revitalization of downtown, it’s the community as a whole, and there’s different pockets where there should be revitalization — not just concentrate on one area.
And there’s also going to be issues with crime, but if you go throughout the whole province right now, where they’re dealing with municipal issues, crime is the number one issue and it always will be.
Jobs — in your case, I’m going to say jobs are an issue. Right? What kind of jobs could be available to you in this community? You, young lady, would probably like a moderately to higher-paying job. Nobody wants to work for minimum wage. That’s why you’re getting an education right now. You’re bettering yourself to get those types of opportunities. And it’s our job, and different parts of the organization, like CEPCO [Chilliwack Economic Partners Corporation], their job is to try to find those types of jobs and bring them, more of those types of jobs to our community. Some people are going to go against CEPCO and what the downtown BIA has in store for us, but I’m here to actually look for and bring those types of jobs to our community for people like yourself. I’m just making this up as I go, so.
Who do you view as your constituents?
I’m going to be honest with you: you, personally, are probably going to vote. I know a lot of people in your age group — and we’ll use the age group, the demographic between 18-24. Realistically, they don’t vote, and that’s the problem. I don’t want to give you a song and dance that says, oh, yes, you’re all going to vote, because I know what the demographics show.
You in the university are going to vote, and I look at the numbers and I say to myself, okay, there’s a hundred people that work here, maybe involved with your paper, maybe there are several hundred that might consider voting, so what are the numbers that would actually possibly vote? I don’t know if you knew this, but if every single person between 18 and 24 in this community voted — that would be about 5000 people, which is about five per cent of the population. You would decide who the mayor is. That’s how low the vote is right now. And [you would decide] who every city councillor is in this community, based on if every single one of you voted. Then we’d have to listen.
How will you receive the views of the entire population instead of just those most active around City Hall?
You have to engage people and engage people of all ages, all demographics. And part of my job as a long-term paramedic and a long-time fireman is I’ve always engaged people of different demographics and different age groups. From 18 to 94, whatever age we can get information back from helps. The problem with any part of government is we tend to lobby people just before an election: I want information, how do I get your vote? Really? And is it a sale? You have to do that continuously. My father was a mayor in a small community and a city councillor, and one of the things he was really good at was engaging the people on the street and asking them what their opinion is, not just what their issues are but how to fix those issues. So really it isn’t me fixing the issues, it’s you fixing the issues.
Are you doing anything to address the lack of student interest in local politics?
I’m trying to, and what I’ve done is I’ve done lots of research. There’s a couple of good articles on TED Talks on how to engage and what do young people want. Because, realistically, I’m not a young person. My children are the same age as you. So I have a different understanding. But really it’s the same concept: how do we engage them? We ask them: how do you get to vote? Ask them, not tell them.
So one of the things that came up was we want an option to be able to vote on my phone or my computer. That’s not done here in Canada and a lot of the reasons why is they feel there’s a lot of cheating going on. But there’s a lot of ways and concepts to do that and to find ways that you’re less likely to cheat. So I’d like to see that have a process. And that’ll be up to you, young lady, and all the people in your age demographic to lobby for that. Because that’s the only way to actually get things done. If you lobby for it, and you vote, you get a say. If you don’t lobby and you don’t vote, you don’t get a say. I can give you a song and dance all day long, but as long as the majority of the 18- to 24-year-olds don’t vote — are we really listening? I think it falls on deaf ears. And you’d probably agree with me on that too.
Everybody that I asked actually said the same thing: “I want an option that says ‘none of the above.’ And that’s my way of saying I didn’t like any of the options.” So what happens if none of the above gets in? Now we actually have to listen to what you say.
So those were the two things I looked at that people want: they want the ability to vote on their cell phone or they want the ability to vote on their computer, so they don’t have to go down to city hall on the fifth or the twelfth, or the fifteenth and actually vote. They want that option right here, in the convenience of their phone and their computers. And also none of the above. Those are the two ones that I’ve come up with so far. There’s lots more out there but those are the two. And you know what? When I’m talking and engaging with family members, young family members, they give me that little face that says, “I disagree.” But you’re the future of our democracy in this country. So it’s up to you. So I’m engaging you to go after the rest of that population between 18 and 24. Because you’re going to start to fall out of that age group, but let’s see if we can get people motivated and find out what their issues are, right? Because really, we don’t really know — even though we say we do, we don’t know.
If elected, how would what you want to do as councillor be different from what council is already doing?
I’ll be honest with you. City Hall, or any part of government, tends to fall, to go along with what people say. Sometimes true leadership has to do with stepping forward and saying, no, I disagree with that, and there’s a reason why I disagree with it.
A good example: I think we had an issue with building on the hillside, which I think was an issue called Marble Hill, and the city was called a house of marbles. Right? So they built on that, but there was a lot of pressure at City Hall for people to put up their hands and say, let’s build this.
The other thing to do is to get enough information so people at the council level can make an informed decision. What people do, for example, developers, [is they] use a framing technique where they give you all the positives but they don’t give you all the negatives on that. So have all of the information available to the city councillors, or whoever gets to make those decisions, and have it all brought forward. The problem is it’s like sales, and we tend to sell something based on the positive things, not necessarily the negative things.
Do you have a specific project you want to prioritize or bylaw you want to change?
My expertise is emergency services, public safety. I’m on a board with the mayor’s committee for crime and safety, and I would like to stick with a mandate like that. Fire departments and search and rescue have asked me to help them. Since I’ve worked as a unit chief in east Vancouver, I have a really good understanding of social issues. So that’s my strength. So I’d probably, to start with, stick with my strengths.
But I would also be a fast learner when it comes to other things, like job development for moderate or higher-paying jobs in this community and how to make this an inviting community for these types of companies, for people such as yourself to work. And not just people in the 18-24, but people of all age groups to actually get good-paying jobs in the community if they choose to stay in this community. Sometimes that’s hard to do. You want to go, you need to go somewhere? Set your sails and away you go? That happens. But we need to give you those opportunities if you would like to stay in this community.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
