Nuanced. - 60. Clint Hames: Former Mayor of Chilliwack & Community Leader

Episode Date: June 14, 2022

Clint Hames and Aaron Pete sit down to discuss the importance of community, the impact of leadership, and the role of politics. The two also discuss Clint's appearances on Chill TV, his band Judy Tuesday, and his involvement with the Chilliwack Players Guild. Over the past 40 years Clint has amassed a comprehensive resume including work in the non-profit, private and public sector.  He worked for 17 years in executive positions within a large non-profit and founded and ran a private sector, human service organization for 25 years.  During that time, he also served his community as an elected City Councillor for 9 years, the city's Mayor for 9 years and spent 18 years representing his community on the Regional District Board (equivalent to a County Board in other jurisdictions) including 3 years as Chair.  Upon retiring as Mayor in 2008, Clint was appointed by an Order in Council (Canada) to serve on the Board of the Canada Lands Company, a non-agent Crown Corporation involved in the development of surplus federal properties.  During this term he served as the Chair of the Human Resources, Governance and Investment Committees as well as Board Vice Chair.  He retired from this position in 2018.Send us a textSupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

My name is Clint Hames, and a brief introduction goes something like this. There's a number of different aspects of my life, all of which seem to play a role. I'm a former mayor and a counselor for the city of Chilliwack, so involved politically in a number of different ways. I'm also very involved in the creative side of life. I'm president of the Chiluac Players Guild, and also a musician and play in a rock man that's been very, very, very, busy the last few years. Also, I have just recently retired from work, which was involved supporting people with developmental disabilities. I had an agency that I founded in 1993 that worked with people who would be receiving community living services throughout the lower mainland,

and I retired from that about five years ago. So there was that vocation as well. For a period of time. I think it was nine or ten years. I was also serving on the National Board of Directors of the Canada Lands Company. Canada lands people would know in Chilliwack and other communities throughout Canada as the agency that is redeveloping the decommissioned bases around Canada. As well, it owns the CN Tower in Toronto and the waterfront in Montreal and Downsview Park in Toronto and looks after a wide range of both tourism-related infrastructure and redevelopment of military bases. So that gave me a chance in that period of time to see a whole bunch of the country and be involved in some redevelopment projects, much like Garrison Crossing in Chilliwack. That's amazing.

I find what you've done in your career so interesting because in one short word, it could be described as community. That's what you've dedicated almost all of your life to. I'm interested to know how you got started in this. Where did this come about for you in your early years? Was community always a big part of you? Or where did that kind of come about? Well, interestingly, I was a military brat. My dad was in the military and he was posted to Chilliwack in about 1958.

And so I settled in Chilliwack at, I guess it was four or five years old at that time. And it was unusual because military brats don't typically get connected with the community because they're thinking they're going to be moving on fairly soon. So there's often a tight group of people and then you move on to another city or another base. We stayed in Chilliwack. My dad retired here and went to work on the base in a civilian capacity. So I guess it was about the time I was in high school and started getting involved in theater in high school and began to really, really get excited about the community of theater folk,

because that community, the first production I was involved in, it just amazed me that community theater had, among the people working on the show, there was the high school principal was there a couple of prominent physicians were in the cast there were people from every walk of life were involved in that theater production as a community theater a product and I was just amazed at how that brought people together and I really enjoyed it and it made it felt like a family so that sort of first theater experience that I had was a lot of what sort of drove me there and then as I I began to kind of look outwards at the community.

I realized that arts had played a significant role in my life. And I thought, boy, I bet you, you know, that would be a really great focus for a person to have, not necessarily professionally, but just personally as a way to build a community through the arts and through the development of arts in the community. So that's kind of how it started. And then once you touch one sort of segment, then it branched into other segments like sports. and I was very involved in minor sports coaching and refereeing and those sorts of things. And it just seemed like once you get bitten by that notion about building community,

it doesn't seem to stop. And that's certainly the story of my life. Would you say that being involved in plays and developing that kind of more creative side of yourself was important? Were you an introvert previously and then you became more extroverted? Or where was that kind of impact on you? I don't think I was an introvert. per se. But I think that I was very much, I mean, in high school, and you would have known this, and anybody knows there's kind of the in crowd in high school, and then there's the people on

the edges. And I was certainly a person on the edges. But in the high school, there was a very, there was a thriving theater department. And one man who had always pay tribute to, his name was Ray Logie, and he ran the theater department in the high school. And his classes and courses were all so inclusive that it seemed to draw this really broad, broad group of kids there. And some of them would have been, you know, the kids that didn't fit in anywhere. But they seemed to find a way to fit in in that very inclusive environment that was theater. And it really changed my life as I began to, you know, see the power of including people and what that can do for folks, just like me. I mean, my self-confidence just soared when I was involved in those productions.

And I saw people who were, you know, in other situations, they were very introverted and shy. But you get them into a theater department, you get them involved in a production. They just blossomed. And it changed their lives, the same way it changed mine. I often think back of my theater experience and being on stage, if you will, as the mayor, in front of a crowd of people having to answer questions on the fly. And I think that experience of being raised in theater has certainly helped, and certainly I know other people who were the same. Can you tell us more about that blossoming process? Because I find that so important that we find one way or another, whether I've had guests who have been involved in the military, who have served, who have kind of gotten that sense of responsibility or duty through that avenue. I'm just interested, what did you see in terms of blossoming? Where does that come about?

Is that having a role to play in knowing that this is your lines and if you learn them and you do it properly, that's good? Or what does that look like? Well, I think it had a lot to do with the fact that the people leading that process, Ray Logie and others who are in leadership in that process, understood the value of encouragement, no matter what they were looking at, which gave you confidence. And I know that at that period of time in my life, you would get all this encouragement and praise for, from the people you were working with and the director or the leader who, Mr. Logie, and you would be, and it was that praise and encouragement that created a safe space, which created a place where you could say, well, okay, I'm going to experiment a little bit. I'm going to maybe do something a little outside of what I feel comfortable with.

And when you get praise for that, and you get people who understand that you can't say, stop that, you know, don't do that. Instead, say, that was amazing. where did that come from? Why did you try that? And all of that would just build these folks. And that's what happened with me. And the first couple of things I tried in an acting role, I got so much encouragement. And it became such a safe place that you began to experiment. You began to kind of reach out and learn more. And you knew that nothing was going to be discouraged, that you weren't going to get slapped down. You weren't in that kind of an environment. And I think it was one. of the healthiest and safest environments I've ever been in. That's incredible because I think that that is one of the problems we face is we, I hear about people starting a new venture, trying to start a business, trying to do something, and immediately people say, that's not you, that's not the person I've known for 10 years,

20 years, your whole life, and we get so lost in other people's perceptions of who we are that we don't necessarily always reach our full potential because we don't have those people saying, that's amazing. And boy, aren't we lucky that you're doing this rather than staying at home just watching TV? And I think that that's so unfortunate when people miss out on that opportunity. And I think that that encouragement opens so many doors for people. Well, and I think there's a way to encourage people into realistic endeavors. I don't, I'm not saying, oh, you should just encourage people to do whatever they want.

That's chaos. But you shouldn't say, no, you can't do that. You should be saying, okay, how can we work on this together? What support do you need for me? How can we let you explore in a safe way what you want to do, what you want to achieve, and we can put guardrails on and protection, but we're always encouraging instead of sort of just saying, no, you can't do that, or that's a bad idea. Yeah, especially when you think of like when you have like a employee or a student,

motivating them can be the hardest part, but it's just channeling when they are motivated. And like it's easier to pull someone back than it is to pull them. forward. And I think that so often people don't know what inspires them because they don't, we forget to ask people what gets you excited, what gets you motivated. Did you know that first class that this was something you wanted to do? Because you've been a member of the Players Guild for a very long time. Can you talk about that? I think the, as I said, what continued to attract me to being involved in theater. And I went from high school to exploring the idea of having a career in theater, which we can talk about why that was a failure

but I think it was just that continuing creating those continuing environments where people were encouraged that just kept me moving forward in that environment and I thought well if you could make money at this it would be perfect now the sad reality is that it is really hard to make money at doing theater in one way or the other because there's just so many people out there

who want to be a star and want to get involved in professional theater or in the movies or do those things. There's such an attraction for that. The market is very small, especially at that time for a 20-something kid with about as much talent as every other 20-something kid, you're simply not going to make a career of it. I managed for a couple of years to work through a number of different theater companies and do a bunch of stuff in theater. But eventually, I thought, I think I'll just keep this as something I do in community and then try to.

use my lessons to help build up other folks and build a community of community theater folks. That's incredible. That's the interesting part. Was that a hard decision to make to say I'm going to hang this up or kind of put that? No, not at all. I mean, it's just, it's being pragmatic. You could struggle or you could start taking jobs that actually paid your money on a regular basis. And I mean, I went from working with a theater company that was called, interestingly, music, dance, and drama for the handicapped. And it was a government grant. And the group I worked with were musicians, actors, dancers, singers, and we traveled to a number of different venues throughout the lower mainland that in those days were called mental health boarding homes. So there are these huge mini institutions full of people.

with psychiatric illnesses, and we would do music, dance, and drama therapy with them. And I was hired because I had some drama workshop experience, and I played the banjo and guitar at that time. And so I could fill in that piece, and there was other people who filled in other pieces. And we did music, dance, drama therapy in these boarding homes. So there was an interesting crossover for me. That grant lasted a little over a year. But sometime after that, there was a job came up working with people with developmental disabilities, and I had enough experience that at that time, that I could then sort of switch over and begin working with people with disabilities, and the drama part kind of dropped off. I wasn't doing that. I was

doing other things in supporting them, but the same principles applied. You're building, you're encouraging, you're creating a sense of community and adding value to the individuals that have disabilities who typically up until that point in time were seen as having no value by a community. That's hard to imagine in today's society because I've grown up always thinking that those people have value. When did that, was that the first interaction? Because you talked about how you formed an organization and that you've been involved in that work for a very long time. Was that your first interaction? Yeah, right after, and I'm trying to remember the year, maybe 74, 75, somewhere that was in the last century. That's a fun thing to say.

where I started working, and it was an organization in Chilliwack that folks have been here a long time would remember. It was called Sunshine Drive, and it was a school and an adult workshop for people with developmental disabilities. And the workshop was supposed to be a place where people learn basic skills in a number of different areas and crafts. And essentially, it was an activity program to keep adults with developmental disabilities busy. and I began working there and realized pretty soon that the folks that I had always imagined at a point in time had very little to offer in terms of value. My job I assumed was going to be somewhat custodial. But what I realized after being there a very short period of time is these are fascinating people with lives that I would love to know more about, with skills that don't get utilized. and are hidden away from the community, largely.

The community was happy that folks with disabilities were being looked after, but they weren't integrated in any way into the life of the community. So very soon after I started working there in the 1980s, early 1980s, it became, everyone began working at integrating folks more into the community. So more things were being done in the community. And shortly after major institutions in the province like Woodlands, Tronquil, These were huge, huge institutions that had thousands of people living in there were being closed. And those folks were being moved to the community so that they could experience lives in the community.

And agencies like the one I worked for at that time were beginning to realize, wait a minute, we need to start building our community so that it will be more accepting of these folks. And we need to be doing more in the community so that we can show the value that these folks bring to a community. So that was sort of my 1970s through the 1980s period of time. And that even transformed into us working on programs for employment for folks with disabilities, supporting their employment in the community. When I left that agency, I was the Director of Employment Services. So my job was finding jobs for folks that typically had been in institutions and thought to have no value. And we had progressed to such a degree that we had,

we're now working with employers in the community to find jobs for folks. It can be so easy for us to look at the next problem and try and solve whatever the new problem of the day is. How does it feel to have watched that development over time where we realize various communities' values, but in particular people who have different struggles or different worldviews than us, to see us kind of go, we have like a custodial role for them and we're going to put them into these institutions. And now it seems like we've hit a point where we're like,

they're no less than us. They're just bringing something different to the table. And it seems like more and more we're realizing that. What is it like to have seen that? Because as I said, I don't, I've been there for such a short period of like, I've always been told that those people play an important role and have something to offer. I didn't get to kind of see that misunderstanding or that misinterpretation. Well, it is fascinating to watch, to have been a part of that process,

Because as you go through it, there were folks at that time who said don't close the institutions. There were folks who fought vigorously to keep them closed because people wouldn't be safe in the community. There were people when we began putting in group homes in Chilliwack. There were public hearings and neighborhoods came and rallied against having a group home in their neighborhood, which was four people who'd spent their lives in an institution and could barely figure out. on a daily basis, how to get their own needs met, let alone be somehow a burden in a neighborhood. But it was different. And it amazed me at how angry and frightened community was. And it showed you how separate their lives had been from people with disabilities. So, but we see that

play out all the time. And I sometimes feel like we can go back to, biblical times and look at the way lepers were treated and eventually leprosy was not an issue anymore but it seems like every period of history we seem to have a new set of lepers in our lives that we have to figure out how we're going to how we're going to solve those issues and we don't seem to learn lessons in the 1980s it was people with developmental disabilities moving back into the community they were the new lepers and they were shunned and And, you know, they were unclean and we had to keep those kind of people locked up. And slowly we broke those barriers down by simply doing it, not paying attention to the naysayers and saying, no, we know this is going to work.

Today we have examples of society's newest lepers, people who are homeless, people who are drug addicted, people who have suffer with debilitating mental illnesses. Those have become the same sort of people we have to, we have to as a society, figure out how we can find. value in those folks and recognize that value, exploit that value, and make them part of our society. And then we move from there, the LGBTQ community can be seen as separate from and are, you know, many people trying to say, no, no, no, no, we need to be inclusive of that group of people as as well. And society is slowly restating the margins. Our margins, when I was starting work in 1975, the margins or the definition of what was a fully functional, worthy of value human being

was very narrow. And today, those margins are much wider. And tomorrow, they'll be wider still. So that process of watching those margins get pushed because there's significant pressure on the other side of them, but watching those margins get pushed is it repeats itself. And that's the wisdom I have that maybe you don't because of your age, but I've seen that through the ages of watching society push those margins farther and farther apart. I think that that's why young people need to hear from people like yourself, people like Brian Minter, because we get, sometimes when you're young, you feel like you've figured it out, and so you have maybe an ego about things. You feel like, oh, well, how people did things back then was stupid, and if they just continued that way, they were just wrong for doing that. And it's like, that's certainly an easy pat yourself on the back kind of attitude, but to understand that we're constantly

growing and evolving and reshaping how we see things, and that we've gone through these processes before and having that broader context I think is so valuable because we forget that so easily and we feel like why haven't other people been taking care of the planet and we look at the past and go those people were just dumb for how they acted and it's like well if you look at like I think it was like a hundred years ago they did a research study and they said you couldn't overfish the oceans if you tried ever they didn't know that there was going to be like 8 billion people on the planet they had no idea what the world was going to be and so these problems kind of come to us and then we react over time. And I think that that humility is something young people

need to hold on to is that we don't have all the answers. We're going to make our own mistakes and we're going to repeat parts of history and it's important to hear from people like yourself. Well, I think what I've learned is that the mistake we tend to make and I've certainly made it in my life is that I tend to demonize the people that don't agree with me. Like if I get it into my mind that now is the time that we need to integrate and include people with disabilities in the lifeblood and operation of our community, and that's a fundamentally good thing. If somebody doesn't believe in that, I tended to immediately dismiss and demonize.

Instead of trying to work with that particular way of looking at the world and change it or at least minimize the impact it might have, I tended to just say, well, I'm excluding you from what I'm doing. And isn't it ironic that the way we would deal with an issue of inclusion is to exclude people? And it reminds me of somebody who stood up at a seminar I was involved with when we were talking about, you know, building tolerance in a community. And they said, yeah, we have to stamp out intolerance. And I thought, listen to those words. And I think that that's part of our problem.

Part certainly was part of my problem, is that I felt like we need to. to vigorously stamp out intolerance. No, we have to understand what brings a person to a position of not having the tolerance that's required for others to be successful and then try to work with that. And it's hard. It's much harder. It's a harder way to do it. Absolutely. And I think that for me, that came in when I learned the term steel manning, which is the idea of taking the argument and maybe it's an elderly person who's got this outdated view and trying to see if there's anything to their points that we could glean from their incorrect perspective? Is there anything that would help us understand the issue? Because the challenge is you get your perspective on what

the issue is and you miss out on those other people that might have something. It might not be the correct response and the correct perspective, but having that humility to just hear them out and trying to see, okay, if I was going to take the best of your points, what would that look like? Well, here's the thing. We talked about this in the very beginning. It's about feeling valued and included. And you're not going to change unless you're doing so from a position of feeling valued and included. And if we shun and exclude people's opinions just because we disagree with them, they'll never change those opinions. What they will do is they will seek out people with similar opinions so they can be in a place where they're valued and included. And that's what we

have today is we have a whole group of people over here that band together and find value. in that banding together and another group of people over on this side, and we're hardening those positions, especially politically, we're hardening those positions up. And there's no middle anymore. And I'm thinking about the United States. There's no middle there. Everything is hardened off. And I'm not sure where that goes. But that's the lesson that I would pass on is to say that we can't get there in anything that we do. We have to find ways to value what people have to say even when we disagree with it, but find value in what they have to say and find value in them as human beings. And then we begin to build something, build community. Do you feel like

the problems of the U.S. have always come to Canada over time? I worry about whether or not we're going to repeat the same kind of attitudes and movements that the U.S. does, because we have with mandatory minimum sentencing, the U.S. brought in a three strikes and you go to jail forever, and we started to sort of do the same kind of bit. Do you worry about that? Yeah, I don't think anybody right now should be using the United States as a model for their democracy. I think it's fundamentally broken. And so, yeah, I would worry about. that. You see it, though, in Canadian politics. You see that people look at what's happening in America and say, well, that guy was pretty successful with that approach. Maybe we should try that

approach. And we'll see, time will tell whether that's successful. I think in Canada, we have something a little different, though, in the United States, your left or you're right, you're Republican or you're Democrat, you're liberal or you're conservative. That's all or is. There is nothing in the middle. And so when they begin to fight, it just separates and pulls apart. There's very little in the middle. But in Canada, we've always had three parties or pretty close to having three parties. And that's a great balancer because, you know, we have the conservatives who can shift from the far right to the middle pretty quickly and easily. You have the liberals who tend to try to campaign from the right and govern from the left. And they've been pretty

successful over the years. And then you've got the NDP, who more recently have become kind of the holders of some manner of power because they're keeping that balanced over from the center right to the left. And I think Canada doesn't have 60% of its population who are ultra-conservative or 60% who are progressive and democratic. Whereas in the United States, it's just a about 50-50. I mean, it's about 50% Democrat, 50% Republican. And there's very little to claw in between there, based on who comes, it's generally based on who comes out to vote. And so we're different because we have a different makeup and we have three political parties. And I think that if the United States is a seven on the scale of zero to 10, 10 being as conservative

as you can get, and zero being as progressive as you can get. I think the United States is basically a seven. I think Canada is clearly a five. So I think we've got a long way to go to get like the Americas, but it does frighten me. Absolutely. One of the questions I had for you, because I'm sure you've heard this, is people have this pessimistic attitude about politics. They have this mindset of like, my vote's not going to sway an election.

And I try and remind people, and I say it a lot, we vote with our money. every day, whether or not you support local, whether or not you support the local business down the road, or whether or not you support Amazon. And organizations like Walmart or Amazon, they notice when you don't choose them. They're trying to keep track of your spending so they know how much they're pulling you onto their platform. So we vote all the time, but there's often this feeling with so much of the population, and we talk about this a lot, which is like so much of the population isn't vote. You've been involved in politics to some degree or in some way or another for a lot of your life. I'm just interested, what have you said to those

people who feel so defeatist? What would you say to those people? Well, I've got a great story. Way back in the 1980s, there was a marilty race in Chilliwack. And there's some interesting history here. There was a sort of the old guard, and I was particularly interested in this municipal election because there was a lot of talk about a cultural center as a part of what was going on. And one of the existing mayor was sort of not too big on culture, but, you know, might be able to be pushed that way. And he was running, running against him was a single-term counselor who was the president of the Arts Council and was really determined to have the arts play a bigger role in the community. And they were running an election.

And the, when the final tally was in that night, now it changed, and I'll get to that night. a second. But when the fine tally was in that night, and we're only talking a few thousand votes because that's how many people there were, the, the fellow that I was supporting who was pro arts, lost by 10 votes, 10 votes at the end of the day. We were at his party, you know, his victory or defeat party, and went around the room and we found 10 people who didn't vote at his party who said oh yeah I never kind of got to I mean that's I mean that's

an extreme example but my God every vote sends a message every vote sends a message whether you're successful or not every vote is a message and believe me I've been involved at the deepest levels of federal provincial and municipal campaigns

and the people who go over those entrails at the end of the day are looking at every vote and they're analyzing what do those votes mean, and they're analyzing where they were cast, and they're analyzing the demographics of that particular area, that particular neighborhood, and they're looking at those.

So you may not think your vote counts because you've voted a certain way in your guy or girl has never gotten in. But the fact of the matter is the people who are involved in government are paying attention to every one of those votes. And, you know, I can't understand why somebody wouldn't vote. vote. I get it. I get it on a, I get it on a municipal level. And here's why. On a municipal level, you actually have to pay attention because there's no parties in Chilliwack anyway, and certainly there's other places there is, and their turnouts are much higher than Chilliwax.

But in Chilowac, in order to know who to vote for, you actually have to read, you have to pay attention to what they're all saying, and you have to then kind of sort through what you think and what they think. When it's a provincial or a federal election, pretty much everybody's either a new Democrat, a liberal, or a conservative. So you need to actually have to do anything. You don't have to attend in all candidates,

meaning you don't have to read a thing in the paper. You can say, I've always voted conservative, and nothing's changed my mind. And you vote conservative. And often it's based on the leader. It's not based on who the local guy is. You probably don't even know who some of those folks are. But at the municipal level,

it requires an awful lot of work. for people to vote. So they often will say things like, ah, I can't be bothered, my vote doesn't matter. What they're really saying, some of them, is it takes more work than I'm willing to put into it. And yet, it's the level of government where you are the most impacted, right?

We just had a little chat around your neighborhood here, and what did we see? We saw a road that was at one time thinking about taking a cul-de-sac and pushing it through to a main road, which would have changed the culture of this neighborhood completely. We saw a dog park. We saw walking trails. We saw a little kitty park. Those are all things that municipal governments do. And that was four or five in the five minutes we spent just having a chat outside that you could name, not to mention the street that you're standing on and the water

that I'm about to drink. Those are all municipal things and those are all the things that when you don't vote for municipal government, you're missing an opportunity to have influence over. Yeah, I think of people and their role, because we talk about, and I've said this before, but we have this idea right now about our rights, and we're very clear, and people are taught at a very early age about their rights. And I think that that's great that we have these rights enshrined, but we need to teach people that those rights come with responsibilities. When I was a native court worker, I'd have clients who'd say,

my kid, they come to me and they try and hold up a document and say that they know their rights and that I'm not, providing this level of service so they're going to call social services on me. And that's a tough conversation because on the one hand, thank goodness, that people aren't getting away with the mistakes and that this child is informed on the system. But at the same time, we need to tell people that these rights come because you have responsibilities, that you have a role to play in your community, in your family, and that you have responsibilities to use these rights fully and properly.

And I don't think we tell people that, because we talk about freedom of speech. And for some people, they go, oh, not another talk about freedom of speech, because we forget to say that the whole reason you have that, according to brilliant thinkers from 100 years ago, was so that you can seek truth. And the idea that we would seek truth

and not know exactly where that's going to lead us is sort of, it feels like it's lost on a lot of the people that I know, at least. this idea that that is a constant striving that you're not right on everything that you have to humble yourself and go searching and be open-minded and listen and but stand by values stand by your belief in what other people can contribute understand that you have duties to your family like it seems like sometimes we want to flee from our home go grow up get a job and live our own life but you have your parents raised you and so maybe you have a responsibility to them to make sure they're taking care of and that they don't have to stress about their taxes or

where they're going to get enough money for rent next month. Maybe you have a role to play with them and your children and your grandchildren and that these rights give you the freedom to go and follow through on your responsibilities, that it's not just, I've got these rights and I'm just going to sit around and watch TV every day, that you actually have a role to play. Yeah, and I think you've touched on something you could probably have 15 podcasts on, and that's balancing rights and responsibilities. I think one of the biggest issues that I get troubled by is the fact that we don't actually talk about what your rights are in places where we need to talk about those things,

like school as an example. We don't teach kids, I don't think, and maybe times have changed. But I don't know that we teach kids what their rights are, what rights actually look like. Because I see people spouting off all the time about it's my right to do this. Well, no, it's actually not. You don't have a right to that. You have a very few limited number of rights that are enshrined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights for the country. They're very few.

Most of what you're talking about is obligations that you share to be a member of this society, that you can exercise those freedoms, but it's done with recognizing the obligations you have as well. And I think people want the rights without the obligations and the responsibilities. And then they ascribe things, they ascribe things that they feel they have a right to without actually having it. And I'm not saying I disagree that everybody should have some of these things. But you don't have a right to a place to live in Canada. It's not one of the enshrined rights. It's, but it is, I think, an obligation that government has.

is to make sure that people have the resources they need to have the basic things that keep them alive. But it's an obligation. It's not, there isn't a right that the government is failing us on that every person should have a place to live or that every person should have a job. Those are, in fact, things that make society go, but we're kind of failing in the sense that what we're saying,

what we're often hearing is things like, well, you know, people have a right to a living wage. I agree everybody who works should have a living wage. I agree with that in my soul, but it's not an enshrined right. And what happens is then you get to say, well, everybody should have a right to a living wage. So that means the government's not doing something. That means, okay, it's not my problem anymore. It's a government's problem. No, it's not the government's problem.

It's a structural problem with our economy, and that is something government can influence. So if we can line those things up, we can find better solutions than we can work towards them. But it's just too easy these days to say, well, you know, everybody's got a right to this. Well, no, that's not quite correct. So I think we need to do some rethinking around rights and responsibilities and some education around rights and responsibilities so that we can realign the structure of our society. to get some of those things for people. I couldn't agree more. I think of, like, my mother and I,

we relied on social assistance growing up. My mother was born with a disability, and, man, how lucky were we that she, A, wanted to put in the work, that she was willing to do everything she could be the best mother she could be. She was willing to go to any community resource that existed, so that meant family place

in downtown Chilwaukee, where the Cyrus Center is now. And she took parenting courses there, that were free, provided to her, child care was provided to her, so she could learn how to support me, how to understand where I was at in my developmental stage, and she took advantage of the resources available, but it was work, it was not just hanging out. She put in a lot of energy and time and passion into wanting to be a good parent. So she, to me, she met the system halfway. So she can only do so much. She's got her limitations, but she gave 100% of what she could.

And then the system said, you know what, fair enough. And we're going to meet you halfway with social assistance support, with community resources, with funding so that you can go in and enjoy some of your life. So it's not just constant stress. And I think we're so lucky to be in a system. But it's like the system is so much more complex than I think people realize because you need a thriving economy to take that money and throw it in to social programs. And it's not as simple as everybody donates $10. and it's as simple as that. It's far more complicated in those services start to get pulled back during recessions.

And so I'm not an economist, but what I see is during COVID we spent a lot of money. And we're trying to make decisions to make sure everybody's taken care of, but we're spending a lot of money. And then whenever government is involved in spending, that tends to cause six months a year down the road inflation because the currency gets devalued. And so, but who's impacted when the currency is devalued? It's people on limited incomes. It's the very people who are maybe very excited about the money coming in. They're going to be the most detrimentally impact at the end when inflation starts to hit right now, when we're seeing inflation rising. So the money feels good in those early stages, but it has consequences a year down the road where people maybe don't connect the two.

And so it's this very complex system is what I'm trying to say. And to keep everything in line and working is far more complicated than I think anybody. ever realizes because it's businesses involved and taxes are involved on housing and provincial taxes. It's so complicated that you can't root it down to just one, saying one right, and like

everybody deserves housing. We can work towards that, but we need money coming in to do that. Well, I think our society is geared towards things being dumbed down. And when there is something as complex as you've just adequately described, whenever government

spends money it doesn't have, it has the impact of devaluing its own currency and creating inflation. I mean, it's kind of sad to watch when you have everybody agreeing we needed to spend the money that we spent during COVID or in the United States that they spent during COVID. And now those very same people are lining up and saying, and the governments, why aren't they doing something about inflation? Well, the inflation isn't something you do something about. It's already happened. That's why we have inflation. So it's, it's, they count on people not being clever enough to figure out why inflation happened.

But it's, it's a fact of our life. And it disproportionately affects people at one end of the scale and not so much of the other end of the scale. And yes, we have to do something about it. It's, it's a little troubling to me that we don't seem to be doing much about that. the Bank of Canada is reluctant to raise interest rates. And that's the answer, of course, is to tighten the money supply, raising interest rates. That's what's going to change inflation. But that has impact as well on things like housing and all of those things.

So it's a complex world. What you've touched on that I think is most interesting is, I think, one of the social ills that I see us guiding our way through right now is the notion of an entitlement. There's an entitlement mentality that seems to be out there that says we're entitled to a whole bunch of things that we aren't necessarily entitled to, but we want to be. We believe that government should be providing all of these things for us. And in fact, we're not entitled to very much in this life. I couldn't agree with you more. And I think that I love those people who started from very little and worked really hard to get to where they're at because those are the people. I see myself in where I started from in having teachers say, I don't think you're going to go succeed.

I don't think you're going to do these things was because I see myself as that person who beat a lot of odds. And that that isn't something where I want no challenge for, it's again, that tough balance because people need to face adversity to develop. I needed to have people tell me who they think I am so that I could go figure out for myself who I am. And so that inspires me. And when you try and remove all the struggle from people, you miss out on what you are capable of overcoming. Like, I think people are far stronger than they realize. They're far braver. They can be far more courageous than they are.

But we live in a time right now where those things aren't tested. What you would do, like the subway downtown was robbed when I was there, the one by Chilliwock Senior Secondary. And I was standing there, I think I was 12 or 13. And I chased the person down the road. And even today, people are like, why, why would you do that? It's dangerous. It's unnecessary. But I want to know in times of struggle that I'm going to be the person that steps up.

And yes, we might not be in hunter-gatherer times anymore, but I want to know that I'm courageous. And I don't want anything to stand in the way of that value between me and that value. And it's so easy to say, well, they were only going to take a hundred bucks and you could have lost your life. But then I would have died standing by my values. And yes, that may not be comparable to someone in the military dying for their country. But it's that same willingness to stand by what you believe in no matter what. And we're in a time where you can say that you want the best for people, but do nothing. But just post and just say, I care about people.

Look at how kind-hearted I am. And I think that you have an obligation to go and face challenges. And it's why I'd be interested in sitting down with like the Elgar brothers. Because they, like, you think, wow, they must have so much money. money, but think about the risk you have to take on a community to say, you know what? I'm going to like invest millions of dollars in this community and hope for the best because you can do all the tests and simulations and focus groups of whether or not people are going to love it or not, but that's your money and it's out there and you're taking a risk and the reward might be great,

but the cost can be your whole bankruptcy. And so we don't give those people, I think, enough credit because we get jealous of where they have. Oh, look at their house. I don't think many people who haven't been involved in starting their own business understand risk particularly well. But let's not lose sight of one thing, and that is that there's another word we haven't used yet, and that's privilege. And there are people who have very privileged lives, and that privilege has contributed to them being successful. And that privilege is something that has been helpful to some. And certainly, if you don't have that starting out, you're facing obstacles that other people wouldn't face. I mean, I'm sure the fact that my gender and my color were not a barrier to my being successful.

I'm sure that there are others in this community where those two things would be. And then if you throw in other factors on top of that that relate to privilege, they don't have the same opportunity. So I think, yes, building your own business and taking risks and doing those things are great. But let's make sure that what we do is society is not have privilege play a role in that. So everybody starts out in the same place. Everybody, if there are barriers that are different for you than they are for me, simply because of where you were born or your gender or any number of factors, then what are we doing to get rid of those barriers?

Because that's the key issue as to why some folks are successful and others aren't. I take a little offense when somebody says to me, oh, you're so lucky, saying, no, it wasn't a lot of it wasn't luck to get where I am now. And I mean, I'm not by any means an Alger brother or in that position. But I'm retired and I have food in my fridge and I have a motorcycle that I can drive. So I feel fortunate for those things. But that came with a lot of hard work. That came with taking risks with a business that I didn't know whether it was going to be successful or not.

That put personal wealth on the table as a risk to do those kinds of things. It meant at the same time I was building a business. I was the mayor of the city and working 16-hour days so that I could look after my business and look after my family and look after being the mayor. You know, there was a lot that went into that. So, no, I wasn't lucky. Probably the lucky part was that the family would stay with you through all that when they hardly remembered who you were at times.

But I'm sure that privilege played a role in any success that I've achieved. and it bothers me that I know there are people where that privilege doesn't exist and we're not doing enough to remove that and that's where we should be focusing. Would you say, though, that you've lived your life in a way that took whatever privilege you have to pass it on and to raise others up

because I agree with you, people do have privileges and opportunities that others don't get access to, but I'd also say to your point, that you'll kind of have to meet those opportunities halfway. You have to be open to the opportunity. But if you're a person who climbs up the ladder, and I actually just talked to Daryl Plexus about this,

and then you look down at anyone who's not where you are and say, well, they didn't get there because they're lazy, they're stupid, they're not me and I'm better than them, then that's terrible. But when you take what opportunities and doors have opened to you and you've lived a lot of your career looking to make sure that those services are available, that opportunities are available because I don't know if I don't know if we're at a precipice

because I don't know exactly what people experience today, but to think that me and my mother had the opportunity to be in the circumstance where today I feel really blast and I feel like I never knew the mayor of the time or the leader of the Chilliwack Community Center. I don't, I didn't know those people, but they opened doors that allowed my mother and I to live a good life. And my mother, again, she did so much to get us there. But there were these behind the scenes people wanting to make sure that single mothers had

supports, that there were people out there trying to give that leg up to people who wanted it. I'm just interested in your thoughts on opening that door and helping others up because that's how you've lived a lot of your career. Well, clearly. I mean, a lot of the work that I've been involved in and a lot of the consulting work that I've done and certainly other aspects of what I've done have all been about that, have been looking at the community, looking at the broad community and saying who is disadvantaged. And if a person is disadvantaged because they're just lazy,

then, okay, live that life, that's fine. But if a person is disadvantaged for any other reason, the fact that they might have a disability, the fact that they may be a different gender, the fact that they may belong to an LGBTQ community, the fact that they may be a different race than is typical in this community. If those are factors that are playing a role

in that person's success or failure, then that's where we have to focus our time. And that's in working with those communities through most of my sort of work life, communities of people with disabilities, the discrimination was rampant and based on false notions about people's value and what people could accomplish. But those, that discrimination is still there. If you're a female and want to be an executive in the community, in this community and other communities, you're facing a huge uphill battle. If you're from an indigenous

community in this, in this part of the world, it's an uphill battle. It's an uphill battle. to get recognition and to achieve to the same level that others wouldn't have to fight so hard. So those are the barriers that I'm talking about that I think, you know, anything I see, that's where we need to focus our energies and our efforts. And is, you know, there are people who say, well, that's, what do they call it, affirmative action? It's not. If you think about opportunity being in the center, many people don't even get the opportunity to be successful because of those barriers are all discriminatory. They're not based on any kind of reality.

They're just discriminatory. So people don't even get the opportunity to succeed. because there's a barrier there that we have to bust through. Absolutely. So that's kind of the work that I've done, whether, you know, in my profession. And certainly when I was mayor and looking at running a city, we were looking at, are there barriers in our workplace for success? What is there glass ceilings for certain categories of folks in our community?

that work at the city, and I think that's always been a focus of mine. Yeah, one of the big challenges that people don't think about, or maybe is under-talked about, because we use the term systemic racism, and I understand why I just don't like terms that get thrown around, willy, kind of nilly, and their context isn't added. If you live on a reserve, the way the land is handled is completely different than when you own a house in Chilliwack or Surrey or something. something like that. And so you can't monetize your land the same way that you can monetize land in Vancouver or Abbotsford or something like that. And so there's a barrier to taking full advantage. You can't just start a business on your property. You need permission from

band council and you have to be able to explain that. Then you need access to education. And where is the educational institute? Well, in the Fraser Valley, the closest one is the University of the Fraser Valley. So you have to travel from Hope to there. Or if you want to do a different program, it's That trip, as I've spoken to different indigenous people about, is taking you away from your family and community and people who understand you. And so that disconnect can impact whether or not you want to continue or when you're at the university, whether or not you start drinking or hanging out with the wrong crowd or influenced by negative peers that don't want the best for you. And so these are barriers that we might not think of, but I think impact indigenous community's ability to develop economically. Well, let me give you an example, and let's not use an indigenous community, but let's just say that there is a community within Chilliwack that's underrepresented in the employees of City Hall. And you say, well, we just, we advertise our jobs.

I mean, they're on the Internet, and, you know, anybody can apply. We don't discriminate. And then systemic racism is, well, is discovering, well, that particular community, doesn't have access to the internet because they live in a part of the community, let's say that doesn't have broadband wireless or broadband internet. So they don't have internet, so they can't go online to apply for jobs. They don't actually know those jobs are existing. So yes, you're saying this is, you know, we're just doing the same thing for everybody.

You have to go online to find a job. But the systemic nature of the discrimination is such that, you haven't provided an equal opportunity for those folks because they don't have access to that information. So you have to go through what you're doing and saying, okay, by only doing this, who are we discriminating against people without computers? People who may, I mean, maybe whose reading skills might not be all that good because we're only advertising in print. and are there other subtle ways that we're discriminating against certain groups of people because we haven't really given a good thought to how are we recruiting people into our business? So remember, in my own business, we had a project in the Langley area,

and we would do a diversity audit every year of our employees, and we would say, who works for us? and if people were free to report or not report if they chose to but who works for us and is that does that represent the community that we work in here and there was a group an ethnic minority that was not well represented in our workforce and yet was heavily represented in the community and we said well wonder why that is and we set about realizing that the way we were advertising for new employees was not a way that was reaching through to that particular segment of the community. So we changed and advertised in a newspaper that was

part of that community. And within a year, we had a more diverse and more balanced workforce. And so it was just, it's that hard work, doing a diversity audit and saying, does our workforce look like our community and making sure if it doesn't, why doesn't it, and fixing those things that need to be fixed? I'm just curious, and this is a tough question, do you think that that's a challenge for some people to look at people, perhaps based on their ethnicity or their skin, it feels uncomfortable for some people to think about, I think, to think about, oh, we need to bring on this segment of the population, or we're not representing this segment of the, like it can feel to, I think, some as an uncomfortable thing. I'm just curious as to what you would

say to those people. Yeah, I get that. I mean, it sounds like affirmative action, like all the bad things about affirmative action, but from our perspective, it was simply saying, we want our workplace to be as inclusive as possible. There's a group that's underrepresented here, and it's obvious to everyone. Why is that? Let's find out why that group is underrepresented in our workforce. We found out, and we said, well, let's change that. And we didn't go out and start recruiting or we just said let's change the way we recruit and let's see what happens. And the next year when we did our diversity audit and we had 70, 80 employees. Next year when we did our diversity audit, we went, oh, oh, look at that. And the HR person said, yeah, it's

interesting. We changed up and did this and we were getting applications from that part of the community. So it wasn't done to say, you know, we need more. We just said our perspective was, We need our workplace to look like our community because then it will feel welcoming to folks. And if it doesn't, then we aren't being, especially a business whose job it is to build more inclusive communities.

How can you build inclusive communities if you yourself aren't inclusive? I couldn't agree more. I've heard it in regards to policing because indigenous people are perhaps underrepresented in policing. And then in the legal system, they're often underrepresented as judges and counsel, and so I've heard kind of those naysayers, and so I just wanted to ask about that.

Can we perhaps talk about the different levels of politics from your perspective? Because I find individuals like yourself fascinating, because politics interests me just as, like, it's such a challenge to get involved in. But let's start with federal, and then we'll go into provincial, and then we'll go into municipal, and then you can share your kind of experience. What is your perspective on how to look at federal policy? politics in comparison, because they're also different. And I've heard someone describe it.

I forget who, but it's like, I'm a communist in my home because you want everybody to have all the things they need. And then as you kind of go out, you become more and more conservative. I forget who said that, but they did a good job of kind of describing how you want lots of services in your community, but then you want the fiscal spending to be less and less as you kind of climb up the ladder. How do you see federal politics? Well, I think it was, I have the joy of having a daughter who has a degree in political science,

so we have often had these kinds of discussions. But I think if somebody said, if you're not a socialist when you're 20, you haven't got a heart, and if you're not a conservative by the time you're 40, you haven't got ahead. Because I think we do, we get more conservative as we age, because we have more, we have more of what we need, hopefully, by the time we start getting into our 40s and 50s, our lives are more. settled. So we've got everything we need and we get selfish and we say, well, I don't want to give up anything to give those people who don't have what they need because, you know, I've worked hard for all this and why should you take any of my money? And it's called creeping conservatism and

that happens. And we get, as we acquire things, as we age, we get more possessive of those things and more possessive of what we feel we've built for ourselves and we're reluctant to let them go to other folks. When we're younger, we don't have as much, and we think those folks that have a lot more than we do should give us some of it, right? So it's not unusual that when you see a sort of progressive rally in Chilliwack, it's a lot of younger folks who are on their way up. And when you see, you know, a conservative rally, it's a sea of blue rinse. You know, it's older folks who say, wait a minute, I worked hard for this and I want to keep it. And politics in Canada is a lot like that. When you look at the demographic,

of who supports who. What I'm so thankful for in politics in Canada is that we have the three parties, as we talked about earlier. So there's a place in the middle for folks who are pragmatic, who say, you know what, let's just solve problems and let's build a really solid country. And, yeah, you can have folks on the right who are kind of a little out there. And we see evidence of that today. There's those that would suggest that the conservative leadership race is actually a split,

of two different factions within the Conservative Party, one that's a little bit farther right and one that's a little more moderate. And we have that to some degree in the NDP as well. You have a very progressive democratic socialist wing, and you have a more moderate wing of there. And then you have that big melting pot in the middle that tends to win out in elections in Canada. And that's Canadian politics.

That's the small liberalism that has guided Canadian politics. And it shifts, of course. I mean, right now, it's probably a little to the left, which gathered up some NDP voters. But when somebody like Paul Martin was involved in the Liberal Party and Jean-Cretchen, it creeped a little to the right and kind of obliterated the conservatives on the right. So wherever that shift goes, that's who's going to be in power. And everybody else is going to be kind of grasping of every reason to believe that if Jean Choray were to win the conservative leadership, he would create a much more moderate

conservative party. They'd take a lot of votes away from liberals and they could easily form the next government. There's some disadvantage or not disadvantaged, there's some I think people are kind of disappointed in Justin Trudeau right now. There's lots of different reasons why they say that. And I think he could easily lose to a moderate conservative party.

If the other fellow takes over. Pierre. Yeah. I think the liberals will, you'll see policy expand on the right. And they'll be talking about, well, we're going to have to reduce taxes. We're going to have to cut our spending down. You know, they're going to say a lot of conservative kind of talking points. And they'll shift over and grab some of that up.

That's what politics is in Canada to me has always been that shifting on the margins, between conservative and liberals. The liberals, as I say, they campaigned from the right and they govern from the left. And that's the way they've always operated. The conservatives have campaigned on the left saying, don't worry, all your social programs are fine, everything's fine, it's great, and they govern from the right. And it's Canadian politics in my mind. It's a fascinating world. It's a world that I was heavily involved in when I was on the board of Canada Lans because we were a non-agent Crown Corporation.

And so we reported directly to a minister, and we would sort of be trying to walk that fine line between Quebec and the rest of the country, because Quebec is always interested in investment, you know, what can the government do to invest in Quebec? And we were developing in Quebec and in Ontario. So it was a fascinating world. But I'm at one time in my lives, I was very interested in federal politics and thought, you know, maybe that would be a – somewhere I'd like to be, and then sanity resumed, and I couldn't imagine such a thing these days. But so it's sort of a faraway thing to me. Fair enough.

The thing I found interesting, one of my old professors, Camden Hutchison, who's my business organization's professor, he put a study on Twitter that actually showed that people my age are becoming more conservative in regards to Pierre. And I find that very interesting because it seems like he's leveraging social media in a way that we haven't really seen politicians do in Canada. And the only reason that that gives me hope is because I hope that long-form conversations like this become the new standard of how we figure out who to support and who not to is because those short 30-second debates, I just don't know who they're helping figure out make the right decision. Well, and I think we've lost the notion that government or when people are campaigning, they should actually put a real solid platform out there that tells me on the ground how it's going to impact me as a taxpayer. And we don't, we seem to have sort of, we campaign with platitudes, not so much hard information about,

okay, here's where we want to take the taxes in the country, here's where we want to, you know, those kind of things, they don't seem to be as prevalent. It's more, you know, we want to invest to make Canada's largest single investment in affordable housing. What does that mean? How does that look? So, you know, unless you dig really deeply,

it's very hard for people to kind of absorb what happens federally. And I really think federal elections now are just popularity contests. Justin Trudeau is very popular, very young dynamic in the beginning, gets elected, gets reelected with a smaller, in a minority parliament, and he'll be, I'm certain his days are done, and we'll probably have a conservative government because they're dissatisfied. So we're voting against things instead of voting in favor of things. where, you know, it's easy to mark Justin Trudeau with all the ills of the world right now and conservatives will do that and he'll probably be on his way out and we'll have a conservative

government and they'll be taken over by a government, we'll vote against them, we won't vote in favor of what they're doing. So politics at the federal level is sort of voting against things and that's a bit frustrating. Yeah, because it's not inspirational and I think that that's something hopefully we see in the next election is the idea. I don't, the trucker convoy was really weird, but the thing, the one thing that I can pull from it that I like is the idea that the Canadian flag should be something we're proud of. It felt like, and I actually, I'm proud to say that I had a recording before the trucker convoy saying that we don't have that national identity right now, that it feels like we're not all on the same page about things. And I was missing the Canadian flag as something we could stand behind and say, at least we're all on the same page.

And we just, we go through so much that we lose that kind of identity. And so agree with them or not, I just think that we need that symbolism to bring us together. And here I'll disagree with you on this. And I will say that what offended me the most about the trucker convoy was their use of the Canadian flags as a symbol of protest against the government. They were, they were, it felt like they were saying, you know, we're standing. up for Canada. They weren't. They were standing up for a very minor, you know, a minority of Canadians, less than 10% who were feeling like their rights had been trampled because we were dealing with a global pandemic. And what they did with the flag was it became a symbol of

a minority protest that was violent and was, most people in the country did not support. And so they've now taken, like you see people driving around with a flag on their pickup truck, they're not saying I love my country. They're saying I hate my government. That's what the flag has become a symbol of hate for government policy. And that to me is sad because I used to have a Canadian flag out in front of my house. And I took it down because I didn't want people think I was part of the trucker convoy. And so now they've appropriate, they seem to have appropriated the flag as a minority protest that was violent and in many ways ugly, and it was a symbol of that, and have they now made it so that people like me can't put

their flag out on their porch? Because I'm afraid people are going to think I'm supportive of a minority violent mob that was protesting vaccine mandates that actually didn't even exist at the time that they were protesting them. So I'm worried about the fact that they appropriated that symbol and how do we take it back. Interesting. I do think that we disagree because I think I like that the flag is no longer connected to the government because as much as they do use that flag, that is as citizens our flag within the country. And so it does absolutely mean different things to different people. I'm not condoning how the trucker convoy in Ottawa behaved, but I think that that flag will always mean different things to different people. For indigenous people,

many indigenous people don't see themselves reflected in that flag, but you held it up proudly previous to the convoy, because that meant something to you, but it had nothing to do with indigenous issues or people. And so I think that the flags and symbols will always, like, the cross represents different things to different people. Some indigenous people who went to Indian residential school, they look at the cross, and they don't see themselves reflected in that. They see that as the ultimate symbol of their abuse.

But for good practicing real Christians, that's a sign of redemption and failure. And so these symbols, they'll always mean something different to different people. But I see, like, soccer moms, like, with the flag. Like, I see just people from a vast array of worldviews. I see indigenous people with the flags. And so I see that at least,

We're having, maybe we're having the conversation about what the flag means again, and that's important to me, not whether or not one side, one faction is correct or the other, but we're trying to regain our identity and figure out what does it mean to be a Canadian? And when I spoke to Scott Sheffield, who's a military historian, he talked about how many people don't remember our role in World War I or World War II or what those times meant. And so at least re-having that conversation about the flag reminds us of what did we do during those times? Well, we stepped up as Canadians, and we got very close to having World War II start back in Canada, and we were going to pick up the fight from here. And that's incredible sacrifice that we were willing to take on to fight against beliefs that we were against. I've got an idea. Here's how we can agree about the flag. I think we ought to step back and we ought to say, ask a fundamental question, does our flag, is every Canadian reflected in that flag?

And if they're not, why not and what can we do to change? I'd be happy, and I'm probably going to be burned at the stake, but I'd be happy to step back and say if indigenous folks don't feel reflected in that flag, that they feel that it's a symbol of colonialism rather than, rather than a symbol of a new nation that's built with a partnership between all the people that live here, some that were here for 25,000 years and some that are here for 250 years, what should that flag look like? I'd love to have that conversation. Yeah, I think they're actually doing that with British Columbia, right? They're talking about potentially renaming British Columbia, which is a big deal.

And I think it's time. And this is interesting because 20 years ago, I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have had all of those same thoughts. I would have had some residual guilt, and I would have had maybe a different position than I have today. And why was that? It's because I've had the opportunity to feel included and valued in conversations about those things with indigenous leadership in this community. Prior to that, 25 years ago, there was not that same opportunity to do that. So we sat in different places and, you know, shot at each other over land use, over, you know, roads and why weren't we doing this and why were we doing that?

And there was no getting together and valuing each other and the contributions that could be made. So people can change. Even old farts like me can change their views. What does it take? It takes including and feeling valued, which gets us back to the very beginning of our conversation. That's why I like doing the conversations that way is because we get an introduction to you before we get into politics where maybe we feel simplified or misunderstood. I'm interested to know what your thoughts are on what is going on in provincial politics. I recently interviewed Daryl Plexis.

He had some very interesting critiques of how policies kind of manage there. It seems like things are better. not a fan. Even though he was a member of the BC Liberals, he was not a fan of how they were kind of behaving, how they were approaching things. Seems like the NDP have brought a lot more peace to the position. I'm just interested in your thoughts. As you followed provincial politics, I saw that I think you did like a show for the last election where you were kind of talking about how things were going to land. You predicted before Dan Coulter was elected that he was going to be elected. How did that play out for you? And what are your thoughts? Well, I mean, there's

provincial politics in our community, and then there's provincial politics. If we start with provincial politics, BC is an interesting place, and it has, politics has been predictable here since the 1950s with a coalition of anybody but the NDP and the NDP, and we're still there today. There was a time where there were more than one party in British Columbia, but we're still there. And what happens is if the NDP remains pragmatic and doing things that generally people support without getting too

crazy in there, and they can. They can get kind of crazy socialist. And if they stay away from those kinds of ideas, they stay as government for a long, long period of time. The minute they start being influenced by that kind of real left-wing crazy party party.

And they start bringing in policies that may, in fact, drag organized labor back to a position of power, or may give in far too much to organize labor, or may try to do take over too much as government. They get themselves in trouble, and that coalition that's anybody but the NDP gets strong and they become government. And interestingly, they do the same thing. They act like liberals in the beginning and they stay moderate and they stay focused on what's really important.

And then the right wing of that party tends to start getting stronger and then they start behaving in a more conservative way and they start dropping social programs or really bashing organized labor or, you know, taking things away from organized labor or, you know, ripping up contracts or whatever it is. And then they get defeated. And it's always been a mystery to me that if you wanted to stay elected, just stay in that middle lane, stay as moderate and you could be elected forever. But it seems that they're both victims of those parts of their party that want them to move in particular directions. Right now, I see John Horgan is pretty moderate as a leader, but he's got that faction in his party. And you see, occasionally,

you see evidence of it rearing its head as they're starting to bring in changes to the labor code, which are changes that were brought in by a previous government that were changed by previous liberal government that were, and that will drag them away. And I think that John Hogan can win another election, depending on when it's called. But Kevin Falcon is a real campaigner, and he knows how to bring the two parts of their party together, although he sits a little bit farther right than I think typical liberal leaders, certainly right of Gordon Campbell and right of Christy Clark, but he has a way of bringing people together in that party. So it will be interesting to watch how that plays out. And there was a time, and I can remember the 1986

provincial election, and I'll tell you why, because I ran as a liberal in the days when there was actually a liberal party in BC. We got 9% of the vote, and it was just expressing my opinions at the time. But slowly that coalition built back together, because we had social credit, which was sort of the right, the coalition on the right, the BC Liberal Party was very minor player and then the NDP. And shortly after 86, the Social Credit Party fell apart. The BC Liberal Party came up and became that group on the right. So provincial politics in BC have always been that two-party, anybody but the NDP coming together.

And then federally, you have, you know, it's interesting because the NDP can be elected with a solid majority provincially and the next year there can be a federal election in the country and B.C. sends nothing but conservatives to Ottawa.

So, you know, we have a weird kind of a political demographic in our province. But speaking locally, and Chiluac is, you know, despite the fact that we sent to New Democrats to

Victoria, Chilawak's vote totals, if you want to call the center and right and the NDP as two blocks, those have been remarkably consistent over the years. So the total votes for each side. So if you take the anybody but the NDP vote and the NDP vote, which mirrors itself in the rest of the province, that vote total in Chilohm. Chilowack has been remarkably stable over the years. What changed this time a little bit was Dan Coulter got more than the average for the NDP. And that there's no surprise there.

He was a very effective and well-known school board chair. And so that gave him some extra oomph at election time. But when you look at the fact that the right wing side of the vote was split, And I can't remember which writing had which split in it, but the right wing was split, one by Diane Jansen, who ran as a conservative, and the other by Jason Lum, who ran as an independent, but both were, especially Diane. She stole all the votes from John Martin. from John Martin, and Jason stole votes from Lori Thronus, who was tossed out of the party before the election, and Jason stepped in. So you knew that that was going to split that vote as well. So it'll be interesting to see in the next provincial election what happens because, you know, I know both Dan and Kelly and

Kelly, I've had more to do with Kelly because she's actually on the committee than I'm working on. She's doing a remarkable job as a representative of this community. And Dan, same thing. So incumbents have a huge advantage. We'll wait and see. It'll depend on who runs against them and how that all unfolds. But I'm really looking forward to that because that will be fascinating. Do you ever give your viewpoints prior to the election to people, give them, because when I saw how

the lay the land was going to look, I was like, there's going to be some vote splitting here. And I don't have to be a political expert to know that. I could just see how things were going to play out. And I think even when Diane proposed running, people were like, you're going to split the vote. Is there like a lot of conversation? I'm just curious from your perspective, are there conversations that go on where people talk about, like, if I do this, I might not win and I'm going to split the, but like, is that like things that people discuss prior? I think that everybody that runs has this. go-to people where they get advice.

I'm very busy during municipal election time with phone calls from people saying, I'm thinking about running or I am running or what advice would you give me or those sorts of things. I often spend lots of time with various people who are running, just giving some insight into what a campaign looks like or, you know, things that they should think about. in provincial politics somewhat less so because I'm not I was never seen as a player in that field many of the people that were involved in running were people I knew some better than others and I did and they did reach out some of them would reach out and say I'm thinking of doing this and as you said I said well you're you know good luck I think you'll be splitting the vote

but, you know, you never know how disenfranchised people feel. So, you know, you have to know that this is the likely outcome, but good for you. The other question I had, just because you have experienced, not only as a mayor, but as a council member,

Daryl Plessas said something that stood out to me as concerning. He said that he never saw within his own party, which is the BC Liberals, someone act on the interest of their constituents. It was always for, is that going to get us votes in the next election? And that that was always the level of analysis people brought. You come from a municipal level, trying to hold provincial governments accountable and make sure that they're funding what they need to fund,

doing what they need to do for the benefit of your community. How did you feel during your time as a mayor or a council member, did you feel heard, did you feel like these concerns that Darrell had, were valid. I'm just interested because I never wanted paint one brush. I'm interested in kind of everybody's different experiences during their time. Bud kind of described really quickly that he had received the same letter like 20 years previous when he was a commissioner with the city of, with the RCMP in Chilliwack, that he received like 20 years later as a council member. And he was like, I was able to know that because I had done the same request

twice and know that I was getting the run around. And then he was like, I've reached out to Mike Farnsworth and said, hey, we got to do something here, and he was able to push it forward. But had he not known he would have been spinning his tires and not even realizing it? So I'm just interested in your experience. Well, there's two, you're talking about two different things. And first of all, I've probably worked with, I'm trying to think, one, two, three, four, one, two, seven, maybe a dozen different MLAs in the time that I was an elected member of city council. And there's two jobs that they have. One of the jobs they have is looking after constituents in the community.

And I have to say that I never heard of any MLA in that whole time, whether they were a cabinet minister or whether they were an MLA, I never heard complaints from people in the community that said, I can't get anything from them. You know, I've got this problem. And they deal with a multitude of problems, the interface between people and their provincial government. So I never heard anything about any of those folks. And I myself have had issues as a civilian with the provincial government. And any time that I have gone to an MLA, I've found them to be very approachable and interested and helpful. And that's one level of job they do. The difficulty comes when you're trying to get the government to give you something as a municipality.

Because first of all, there's however many other municipalities out there asking for. very similar things. So how do you effectively get your message to them? And it's very frustrating. It's very frustrating. And as a government, there, as you say, their interest is where are the votes, where are we going to make the biggest impact with this kind of a decision? So if you're going as a community and you're saying, okay, we need some funding for a hockey rink. you've got to know there are 25 other communities they're asking for funding for hockey rinks. So you're hopeful that your guy or girl

is strong enough or holds enough standing within government that they're going to be able to actually even get that in front of somebody who's going to help make that decision. And so you're fighting up against other MLAs who have varying degrees of credibility. So if you're brand new and you're not a cabinet minister, you're not a parliamentary secretary and you're going to your MLA who's that profile and saying, hey, can you help us get a grant for our, it's simply not going to happen because that's where

governments make decisions, in my opinion, on where the votes are. And that's why you see certain areas of the province where decisions, and I'll get political here. I think the decision to take the tolls off the bridges was a really bad one. I think we had a great system in place. It did discourage people from crossing major bridges in commuting. It would have added life to our roadways without widening all of those things. But the NDP government promised the people of Surrey that they would get rid of those tolls on those bridges. And that was a very specific promise that was made to a specific region to get votes.

and where did the NDP win that election they wanted in Surrey? All those writings came together and said, we've got to support the NDP because they're going to get rid of the tolls on the bridges. And the rest of us end up pay, you know, we're now paying money to finish paying off those bridges instead of the people using the bridges paying for those. So essentially, yes, government works that way. It can be frustrating.

I mean, we've had at various times in the city of Chilowacra, the region, we've had cabinet ministers represent the riding and sometimes that's an advantage because they're in cabinet where decisions are actually made so you can get some of those decisions in front of the right people other times we've had people who aren't in cabinet and it's few and far between that you actually get anything but it's about relationships it's one of the one of the things that I was particularly proud of as mayor was that I had to work with both governments. There was an NDP and a liberal government.

And it was just as easy for me to get appointments with the NDP as it was with the liberals to go and talk to people and get things that we needed in front of government. So you have to be nonpartisan. The more partisan you are as a local government, the less chance you're going to have when the other guys are in power in Victoria. Yeah, you've said something I really loved before we started recording, which was that on a municipal basis, you don't really know where their party affiliations are on the provincial or federal level. And I think that that was an astute observation. Well, I think the real successful politicians in our community are people that you don't know where they stand politically because they can walk in any hallway in Victoria or Ottawa without having a badge on them like you're with the other people.

So I can't tell you as an example. I don't know our mayor's politics on a provincial or federal level. I have no idea. And that can be said for most of the members of council. I have suspicions, but I certainly don't know. And they're not partisan when they discuss or have conversations. And I think that that's a tribute to those folks because they have, nothing municipalities are doing is partisan.

There really isn't anything partisan about local government. It's all very pragmatic, real decisions. And that's one of the things I really admire about our current council. Brilliant. Can you tell us what made you run for council when you started? And was that a tough decision? I mean, it's a tough decision because it's so life-changing if you win because you go from being, you know, just another person in the community

to being a person that lots of people know. and that's life-changing for your family because, especially the mayor thing, that was quite different. Being a member of council, you're a little bit more obscure, but you're still a member of council. So it's a big decision because it does impact more than just you. It impacts your family. And for me, it was really simple. It was a time in my life, and we're going back again full circle. When I believe that the arts and culture in our community were getting short shrift,

with other forms of more active recreation. So if you're a family and you have kids and you want your kids to play baseball, they've got a baseball field, many of them, paid for by the good taxpayers of the city of Chilliwack, and they get to use those fields and play baseball. They want to play soccer.

They have any number of soccer fields where facilities that have been provided for their use so that they can experience those things. If they wanted ice skate or play hockey, we had ice rinks for them to do that. If you wanted to, in fact, if you wanted to read a book, you could go to the library, which was provided. But if you wanted to dance, if you wanted your kid in dance, or you wanted them involved in theater or music or any other passive recreation, it was expected that somehow the cities weren't going to fund facilities for those, because that's somehow different.

And I didn't see it that way. I thought that we should be spending an equal amount of our resources to develop passive recreation. and active recreation. In fact, there could be a strong case to be made that active recreation is good to a certain point and passive recreation becomes more important as people age because they're not interested in more active. They're interested in perhaps things

that might be developing their mind further or keeping their mind active or those sorts of things. So I was very passionate about putting the arts on an equal footage with more active forms of recreation because I think the arts and culture are a form of recreation in our community. So that was why I ran. I wanted to have that get in front of folks. And I finished sixth out of six.

Like I just, I squeaked in by a few hundred votes. And then serves. So that was your first run, right? Yeah. So can you just tell us what that meant to you? Because regardless of how many votes you got in, The city has entrusted you. What was that celebration like?

I'm just curious because that's an occasion that most people will never fully understand what it's like to have the community give you kind of the ball, give you that responsibility. Well, it's a bit overwhelming. You know, that I wasn't sure, I really wasn't sure whether I'd be successful or not. And it was a bit overwhelming. And I was successful. And it, yeah, there's a, yeah, there's an incredible feeling. of my gosh, what have I done?

Now I've, you know, who do I represent now? And that is interesting because you represent more than just because I think I got 6,800 votes, which is interesting because that was a lot of votes. Even compared to today, council members don't get elected with that many votes, but for some reason it was a big election. And I had 6,800 votes and was elected, and I thought, well, do I just represent those 6,800 people? What about all the people that didn't vote for me? And you quickly go from realizing that you represent everybody. And it changes your, it changes you because you can't just

stick with those issues you brought up when you were elected. You have to, you know, you have to think about other things. And here's the thing that I'm offering this advice free to anybody who's thinking about running for public office and for people who get involved in people who vote. You're not elected for what you know. You don't get elected because you know something or you're good at something or you have a skill. That's not what you're elected for. The city hires, I think the city's got 400 or so employees, many of whom are experts in what they do. They are experts in sewage treatment. They are experts in engineering. They are experts in design and building. They're experts in planning. They're experts.

And some of the smartest people I've ever met work for our city and other cities. You're there. You're elected for your judgment. You're not elected because you've got a great idea on how to pave roads. Because let me tell you, you don't know nothing, right? You're elected for your judgment. You have an unbelievably professional group of people who will say, we have a problem. We need to pave this road. Here's our recommendation on how we do that.

And you say, yes, that sounds good, or no, I don't want to spend the money doing that. But you're not there to have a bunch of good ideas. You're there to use your best judgment when very, very professional folks, bring decisions for you. And 95% of the decisions you're going to make on city council have to do with the budget, and 95% of that is things you have to spend money on. You don't have a choice, right? You might be able to get away with saying, well, do we really need to pave that road this year?

Like if we didn't pave that road this year, we could pave this road, or we could do this, or maybe we could do that project. You get to tinker around the edges, but so much of what the city has to do, It's like a school district. You've got teachers. You have to pay them. You've got buildings. You've got to keep them going.

Okay, at the end of the day, you got this much. I'm putting up an inch between my thumb and my finger. You've got this much that is discretionary that you can now do. Now go figure out what you want to do with that, with that money. I mean, people, and I often read comments on Facebook where people are blasting away about the city this or the city that. And I'm thinking, oh, you have no idea. Like, somehow you think that when you get there, there's a pot of gold you get to spend on the things you think we should be spending money

on. It's just not that way. Can you tell us what it was like to run, either for counsel or for mayor? You've made comments in the news, like writing letters to the editor just saying that like the viciousness, the attack ads, you seem to be against that. I think any person who's not in politics would agree with you. But there's some. something about the political arena that calls for inhumane kind of approaches and not inhumane in violence, but inhumane and like, you wouldn't do that to the person if you had to look them in the eyes and talk about it. Can you tell us about that? Well, I think at a municipal level, it doesn't, it's not, not often that vicious. It can be. There's been certainly campaigns where there's been a little of that. That's more the federal or the provincial where people are just, they say, awful, awful things.

And they say, not so much, well, they say them in awful ways. Like they can make anything you've said or done make you sound like a complete freak. And I, that kind of, I hate that. The sad reality is it's incredibly effective because it, in fact, energizes people. So the person who might see a political ad that said, you know, if you vote for me, I'm going to, you know, put a chicken in every pot and make sure, Every bicycle's got two wheels, and I'm going to do all those wonderful things. You know, they yawn and say, okay, well, there's another political ad.

But if they see an ad that says, were you aware that representative so-and-so, you know, squandered money on, you know, getting his toenails painted at a, you know, exclusive spa in the south of Spain instead of doing his, I mean, whoa, okay, okay, I understand that. That may, okay, that guy's a bad guy. So those attack ads are very effective. And it's sad that we can't engage people long enough to tell them, you know, why they should vote for people. What we've done is now we're not advert. Like people aren't spending money saying vote for me. They're spending money saying don't vote for him. And that's, I think, just a sad commentary on where we're at.

So how did you approach going into the election? Like, what, was it hard to sell? Like, Bud talked about how it was hard to sell himself because he's been a part of a team. Was that a challenge for you? Or did your theater sort of help you kind of be more energized? Here's the reality about local government elections. 90% of the work that you need to do is already been done by the time you say I want to run for city council. Because if you're not a person who's immediately recognized,

as doing good things in the community. If you're not a person that's already relatively well-known for something, you're going to have a huge struggle because you'll be running against people who are well-known in the community. Because that's sort of a natural progression. For me, running for counsel was sort of a natural progression of my life. Certainly running for mayor was, I'd, you know, been very active and involved in the arts community and building community and

doing all those things. And the next level up was running for city council and doing things in a broader sense. And the next step was just a logical extension of that running for mayor. If you're unhappy about something and nobody really knows who you are and you turn that into, well, I'm going to run for city council, I think it's great that you're going to do that. but your chances are much less than somebody who's running for counsel is a logical extension of who they are and what they've done. And then you've brought up Bud Mercer, and that's an example of that. Bud's been involved in community development in policing, and he took very much a community development approach to policing, which meant he was involved in all kinds of different things in the community, and he was always around.

and people always associated him with the community and policing and all of that. So Bud was extremely well known when he took the opportunity to run for city council, and he was recognized as somebody who was committed to the community, and he had a background that people found very compelling. Police, oh, well, got to be a good guy. So let's elect him. And those are the people that get elected, the people that the community looks at and says,

Oh, well, that seems logical. You know, I remember, oh, yeah, they were, you know, the director of this, and they were always on social media talking about that. And I already feel like I know who that person is. I can trust them, and I'm going to elect them. So if you want to run for city council, and then you need to demonstrate to the community there's more to you than just running for city council, because that seems a bit self-serving, right?

So you have to kind of get out there. and be doing things and be seen to be doing things and be seen to be doing things aren't just about self-promotion, but seen to be doing things that are, in fact, making a difference in the community. And then it'll be a natural progression and you'll get elected.

That's a beautiful way to put that. What were the differences to you in terms of your role from counsel to mayor? Because we talk about, we differentiate them, we say mayor and counsel. But for the average person, I don't know if they realize, the duties, the responsibilities, the role you play as a mayor in comparison to city council?

Yeah, city councilor, you're part of a team. And that team gets the information from staff on decisions that need to be made, and you work together as a team to make those decisions. You work together as a team to plan what you need in the community in the coming years, and you work together as a team to kind of see that stuff through. The difference with the mayor is that the mayor is often the person setting the agenda for the coming years. So when I was first elected mayor, I sat down and said, here's the things that, you know, besides keeping everything running, here's the things that I think we need to be doing. And these are the things that I'd like staff to bring forward.

So you get a chance to get a chance to set the agenda. So for me, it was we have to get a swimming pool going and one that's going to attract people to it, not just a little hole in the ground where people jump in and get wet and jump out. We need something that's going to be an attraction for families. We need to keep it affordable, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So we built a wave pool and a, you know, competitive tank and all of those kinds of things. The Chilliwock Leisure Center is out of, wow. So that was number one.

And this was all part of a planning process where staff had said, well, let's go to the community and ask them what they think is important. We needed extra ice in the community because our existing Coliseum was falling to the ground and we were losing bookings for hockey leagues into Abbotsford and other places. So we needed more ice in the community. Minor hockey was bursting at the seams. Kids were having to get their practice time at 4 in the morning, those sorts of things. So we needed more ice in the community. And interestingly, the third thing on that list was we needed a cultural center. We needed a home for the community's culture. We had an art center at the time, but it was an old church and it was running down and it was bursting at the seams. It was busy seven days a week, almost 24 hours a

day. And we needed a new home for the community's cultural core. And that was another project that we worked on. Interestingly, it was identified that where those things are located now, the swimming pool and the cultural center and the ice arena, were at Chilliwack's old fairgrounds. And that property was still home to the Chilliwack Exhibition. And the Chiluac Exhibition actually had on title to that property, although the city owned it. The part of it when, I think it was Isaac Kipp, one of the old-timers, the pioneers in Chilliwack, gave that property to the city. He said only if the city has to make it available for two weeks every year for the Chilohack Exhibition Society to have their annual fall fair. And so we were looking at that property and saying this is a great

place to locate community facilities, but we have to look after the fair. So what we settled on was building Chilliwack Heritage Park out by Lickman Road to become the new home of the Chiluac exhibition with proper facilities for animals and all of those kind of things. And that freed up that space so that we could then redevelop that area we now call the landing. So that was all part of work we were doing with the Agricultural Society and with swim clubs and cultural groups and you name it we were having to piece all of that stuff together. That's so, sorry, that's just so beautiful to think that this person wanted that I kept for that reason and to see kind of the iteration of it come forward and us try and support the community in new ways and like to be a person who used the leisure center and never thought about it to have taken advantage of something that you helped bring about with community members in the city of Chilliwack to have benefited from decisions that were made when I was just a little kid. It's just so kind of beautiful to see how local politics can play such a personal role to so many people and they never even have to think about it.

Well, it's for me, it's great to drive around the community and to be able to say, oh, I remember all towing and froing we did on that. And I remember, you know, sitting down and making decisions on that. And I remember conceptualizing the vision for this, and it gives you a real sense of awe as you drive around and you see those things. And, you know, we accomplished in nine years with when I was mayor just a ton of stuff. And I'd like to think we did that because we had a plan. I remember sitting down with each of the members of council when I was first elected saying, okay, what do you want to accomplish as a member of council? what's important to you and let me tell you what I want to accomplish and let's let's

talk about that and I had that conversation with everyone and that helped put together the plan because many of the things they had wanted were things that I thought should be on the agenda and I remember talking with my dear dear friend Mel Folkman he was a he had just been elected to city council and he said oh that's a lot I said well yeah he said you're going to need nine years. And I said, yeah, and I'm going to need good people with me for nine years. So he said, well, okay, I'll commit for three terms, if you will. And I said, yeah, okay. And we did. We both retired after three terms. And both of us had said, yeah, we got the things done. We wanted to get done. And I don't think the job should be yours forever just because you want it. I think you should

have a list of things. And then people say, well, why did you? You could have run forever. Why did you quit? And I quit because I'd done the things I wanted. to do. And I didn't want to have to, you know, I didn't think it was fair to sort of say, okay, now I want to have a new list of things. And so I thought, no, you know what? This is a, this is a really good time to go out when you're, when they'll throw a party for you instead to be happy that you're gone. So it was nice to leave on high note. That is so fantastic to hear. Did you find any challenges during that time? Like, you think of where like Bud talked about social media and how that kind of has really changed the relationship between

like him and the constituents and it's maybe not something that was on his radar as much as something he thought was going to impact him like when I guess you're planning to run he wasn't thinking what kind of nonsense is going to be on this platform so things have changed I'm just interested was there something equivalent to social media when you were leading the community and what was it like because you're I've heard that the role of mayor is kind of like to lead the conversation, to guide the conversation. What was that like as well? Well, I mean, I guess each mayor gets to decide in some respects how big or small a role they play.

I know mayors from across the province who sort of check in a couple of times a week and chair the meetings. And they have no more interest in running things as not. And I was a little more hands-on. I saw it as a full-time job, and I was there full-time. And the legislation doesn't specify anything. It just, you get to kind of make it up, that you have legislative responsibilities. But you don't have, a mayor doesn't have as much authority as a lot of mayors would like, but you kind of earn that authority by, you know, making good decisions or, you know,

being part of a team or bringing people along. So now I've forgotten completely what your question was. So social media was it? Oh, social media. Oh, there was nothing equivalent to social media when I was mayor. I mean, there was media. And, you know, if we had a big issue, and there were a few in my time, it was the Vancouver media that you, you know, oh gosh, because they were ruthless. Local media, you could figure out most days how to get along with them or how to make things work with them.

But there was no social media. when I saw Facebook was just becoming a thing the year that I retired. In fact, I think I signed on to Facebook in 2009, which was the year I retired. And it would be my undoing today. I don't know, frankly, how people manage with social media and politics. It is just horrendous what impact it has. and it's sad. It's very sad. And I had to, I mean, it magnifies everything. So as a politician, you're looking at Facebook and you're reading it and you'll read something on a local do-gooder site, as I call them. And you'll think, oh my God, the whole community must think that because you've seen it on that site. And they don't. It's a small minority, a vocal minority of opinion that's reflected there. And I actually had a conversation with a member of counsel, not that long ago, as I overheard them talking about, oh, did you read this on this

particular Facebook site? And I said, you know, you're going to do yourself a huge favor and understand that that is not reality. And the more you allow that to rule your decision making, the worst decisions you're going to make, you know who you are. You were elected by the whole community to make decisions don't take what you read there as being reflective of what the whole community thinks because it just isn't and he said yeah I know it's so easy to just get wrapped up in it said you can't like yourself and and that's my advice I mean social media is not the world there are people on there who want you to believe that they're speaking with incredible authority but they're not they just aren't it's

a small percentage of very loud voices. And you can't govern trying to make that group of people happy because guess what? They ain't never going to be happy. Because you might solve this problem. They'll have another one ready for you the very next minute. What they want is the attention. I'm going to be honest and say I was one of those people in 2010, 2011. Things weren't going well in my life and to cause shenanigans with people, whether it was just a debate on Facebook over whether this is true or that is true. Like just having that, like somebody says something and then you get to respond and you get to argue with them. There's something when your life kind of sucks or your day isn't going the way you want to, that that is your little dose of

adrenaline, that that's your kind of going out and experiencing the world for the days just through this app, it really desensitizes you to how that makes other people feel and what the experience people who read it on the other side feel. Yeah, it's, I despair when I see some of the things written and I try to stay away from that. There was a time when I might have responded to something and then I, you just, you know, you come back an hour later and there's a firestorm and most people not even understanding what it is that the conversation's about. So I try to stay away from that. And for me, Facebook is holiday pictures and accomplishments that other people have made

and you can make them proud. And every now and then I rage on a bit on Twitter, but that seems to be more of a political format. But I couldn't imagine being involved in local government or any kind of elected official right now. with what Facebook and social media has done. It's made it so difficult. And it'll just harden people, right?

It just will harden people instead of bringing people together, which is what we need more and more and more. It's going to just drive people apart. So, you know, I have had words of counsel for many people who are elected about social media. And, you know, I think currently our mayor is on social media, but I think he handles it very well. He just uses it as an opportunity to say, here's what's going on, doesn't respond.

And that's the way I think it has to be. I think you have to just sort of let it be a one-way communication. You get to communicate with others about stuff. I mean, even in the Blythe world of little theater, like community theater, sometimes our social media feed has to be, you know, we have to be cognizant of the fact that it's a place where some people want to just cause trouble. I'm so glad I missed it.

I'm just so glad I missed it. Fair enough. So I also think that you're, even though you're not in a political position now, you act as a steward for our, at least our municipal politics for sure. Potentially, if you're speaking with people like Kelly Padden, you're playing a larger role. But you steward the community,

like Bud mentioned that you recommended that he consider running. And I think that that's such a, were lucky that you did that because maybe that wasn't on his radar if you hadn't have said something and that you talk to people who potentially want to run and help them see what the role is and what

it would look like if they were to run. I'm just interested, is that a difficult responsibility? Is it something that you enjoy doing? No, not at all. In fact, I have on occasion encouraged a number of people to consider running for

council and have sought them out or they search me out and ask my opinion. And no, I enjoy that because I feel like maybe I've accomplished something if I can pass the message on about what the job is and what it isn't, that it is about judgment. It is about being able to disseminate fairly complex information fairly quickly and understand what's the right thing to do. and it means engaging in people in the community and being a part of the community

and really understanding community development and what that is. So I absolutely actively search people out if I think, you know, you would be really good at this and I'm batting almost a thousand, I think, on people that I've encouraged to run that have run and they've been elected and supported people.

I don't often endorse people. For some reason, I felt like that was a bridge too far. I shouldn't be endorsing people. But in the last municipal election, I did. I felt very strongly. And before anybody else had announced, they were running for mayor. Ken asked if I would support him. And I said, you know what, I would.

I think you'd do a really good job. I think you have the right temperament. I don't know if anybody else is running or not. I have no idea, but I think you could do an excellent job. And so I did. I publicly endorsed him. And that was sort of unprecedented for me and did the same for Bud because I believed very strongly that he was, it's not to say I wouldn't endorse others or feel like other people weren't good.

But I just felt like Bud was a voice that we needed. to have on our council with his experience in policing especially and his experience in leadership in his roles with the RCMP. I thought he'd be a very important voice. Do you enjoy that more than leading the community as like a mayor or is it just another iteration of being involved in the community? Because you kind of get to help people see what they can bring to the table that maybe there wasn't on. Like Bud kind of said like I don't know. like there was some trepidation, but he talked about how he can't, he doesn't want to think he's all that and go in and be like, I could be counsel and I could be mayor. He needed someone to come

forward and kind of say, you know, you'd be great for the job. Yeah, and Bud is selling himself a little short. He was, I think it was something he was considering at about the same time that I said you should consider this, because, you know, he knew he had things to off. offer, and he also knew where there were deficits that needed to be addressed. And so, yeah, Bud's a very humble guy, despite having a resume that I remember, Bud will hate me for this, but I remember one of the all candidates meetings, they introduced Bud, and as if being a the former commanding officer the Chilliwack Detachment wasn't enough

then it was you know and I get the ranks mixed up in the RCMP but then it's moving up to inspector in charge of crimes in E-division and there was kind of a ooh in the crowd and then it was

and then he was this in charge of whatever and there was another ooh and then oh and then his last post was assistant commissioner with the RCMP in charge of security for the 2010 Olympic Games and everybody oh and I literally saw ever people at the thing all scribbling down like okay we've got one I mean but that's the kind of thing I was talking about before that that's the pedigree that you know bud brings to the table but you know there are other people would bring a pedigree

if, and I'm not promoting them as council candidates, but if somebody came up and said, you know, I've been the executive director of this do-gooder society for 25 years and provided social housing to this and am a director on this agency and this agency and I'm the, you know, the president of this nonprofit, you know, people are going to go, oh, yeah, I know her, yeah, her name's in the paper all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, tick. That's the way politics. at that level, it's done in Chilliwack. You need to, you can't sort of, you know, you can, but I've seen so many occasions

and when I was running certainly where, you know, there was an issue came up and maybe it was a rezoning on a particular piece of property and a neighborhood was mad about that or a planning exercise and the neighborhood was mad about that and the leader of that little neighborhood group started spouting off at every council meeting for the next several weeks and the election was in the, and I'm going to run for counsel and I'm going to straighten everything out. And they would run for counsel and they would finish, you know, because that's not an issue that's resonating with the community. It's resonating with that small group. And that's Facebook. That's what Facebook is. That's somebody standing up and saying, oh, this is outrageous.

And I can remember being on council and thinking, oh, I wonder if they'll get elected. They sure got a big mouth. You know, maybe people will vote for them. And they don't. And the same thing as Facebook. That's just a big mouth that's roaring and you can't allow it to distract you from what you need to do. Yeah. I'm interested in your thoughts. I've interviewed Bud Mercer. I'm looking at having Mayor Henry Braun on, potentially Mayor Popov, and continuing this until the elections come of trying to highlight people, understand where they're coming from, their background, give people at least the opportunity to learn more about the person. in a more holistic way.

I'm just interested, do you have any thoughts on how I could do this? I'm always thinking of how I can improve. Like, one of the questions I wanted to start with with Bud was, is there anything you would have done differently after your four years of being on council?

And that might not be a revolutionary question, but it's one that I don't see when we're doing an all candidates meeting of like, what mistakes did you make and what you've done differently? Do you have any thoughts on how I can make sure that I'm doing the best I can as the host to ask potential guests

on to make sure that I'm being fair to people. I think it's an excellent question of an incumbent is, okay, you've had four years at it. What would you do differently? I mean, it's something they'll have to be very thoughtful about. I think just asking them that is a great question. I think another really good question is, you know, you went into this with some expectations.

Clearly, this is what I want to get done. What have you gotten done and why? And what haven't you gotten done? What are the things that you really wanted to do, but you found you just can't get there yet? And what are those things? And why haven't those things materialized for you? What are you still wanting to do?

Are good questions. Asking somebody why they want to run. I don't know if anybody's going to answer that. I mean, because there's a piece of it that says, because it's a really cool job. And you get to be, and everybody knows you, and you get to be a little bit famous. And it's, it's, you know, it can be really fun. You can't say that.

But it's why, it's part of the reason we run, because it's, it is fun. It's, there's an aspect of being recognized. There's an aspect for me today, even, where, you know, I'll go somewhere and somebody's will say, hey, weren't you the, say, oh, yeah, I was. You were a bum, and we should have thrown you out years ago. No, they've never said that, but I think that's an interesting aspect. And what surprised people about the job, something that they haven't expected? Like, you never knew this was going to be part of it, something that's completely unexpected in terms of the job, either good or bad.

I known Henry for a number of years, Henry Braun, and worked with him on a transportation advisory thing years ago before he was. was in politics. He was, I think he was vice president with Southern Rail at the time. So he was very involved in railway transportation. And I always thought, you know, this guy's smooth. He'd be a good politician. And I think I even asked him at the time. And I've interviewed Henry, and he's a really good interview.

But I think I even asked him at the time, you know, have you ever considered politics? And he says, as soon as these folks aren't doing what I think they should be, maybe I will. But I don't know. That's when he ran. And that's when he ran. And, you know, he's, I don't know his politics, I can guess, like his big P politics, I can guess. But I think he's doing a really effective job in Abbottesford. Like that, what he was doing during the flooding, he had some good, he had some good advice around communications at that time.

And that was, he did an excellent job. So, my concern is always that there are some who run with the best of intention. then there's others that run for the name, for the fame, for the being well-known, and I don't want to promote those people. And so I think that's where I struggle as the host is to make sure that I'm having on the people who aren't really looking for the popularity that they're, because like looking into Mayor Henry Braun, I assume most people don't know that his family traveled here during World War II and lived in a chicken coop or a chicken farm coop for the first months of him living here that his father was spat on when they were biking somewhere for him for the color of his skin and so I don't like that is something that interests me about him beyond his politics your involvement with the players guild and your commitment to community it makes you interesting beyond the politics and so I think that's my struggle as the host is I want to have those people on who aren't just interesting because they're a politician they're interesting because they're a good

person in the community like you said. It's the journey that they, the journey from where they were to becoming that person that they are today is, is always a very compelling story. And so that's, yeah, that's, I think, the story that people don't often get to hear. And I can tell you, this is my bit of wisdom. I think that most people who go into politics at a level where they're going to be recognized, they start out without thinking, it's kind of cool. But it's not why they run. But if they stay in it long enough, it's why they stay in it. Because it's, I think they start believing that they're the only person who could do that job. And there's examples of politicians in the lower mainland who just are there forever. And I don't, I don't know whether that's,

I used to joke about a particular mayor from the, to the west of us who was there for a very long time, that the reason he kept getting elected is he never did anything. He never made any mistakes. So, because he didn't, you know, his, he accomplished tremendous things, but he never talked about them. He never bragged about things. He went to everybody's funeral that was important. So he had a huge personal network. But he was never seen as doing things because he never wanted to be seen doing the wrong thing. So he was very quiet about his accomplishments. And he was mayor for 35 years. So, and I think, you know, I used to joke it's because he never did anything. But, but. It's because he never, he never sort of blasted away at all his accomplishments. He was always just, you know, the guy who was a steady hand at the tiller, that sort of thing. But I think if you're there too long, it's not a good thing. It's not a good thing for your community. It doesn't give you a chance to look at different visions and to create new directions and that sort of thing.

Just like how you have one party or the other kind of form, and it's kind of like a refreshment. Like, many people, by the time Stephen Harper were done, was that we were just done looking at his face. Like, we were just ready for change. And then Justin Trudeau. He's young. It's vibrant. It's energy. And it's, oh, we've got this new kind of culture.

It's the same. It sounds like with being involved in mayor and council. It's just a different way of sort of leaving the position. Yeah. But, you know, in Chilliwack, gosh, I can't remember, well, I can remember. The last person to get unelected was. Stuart McLean was a city counselor. And he wasn't unelected because, you know, people didn't like him.

He was unelected because somebody really, really popular in the community with a huge background in community development and was so well thought of. He just became the, you know, oh, yeah, that person. Oh, we've got to have them. Oh, we've got to have them. Oh, we've got to have. Oh, we've got to have. Oh, I didn't vote for Stewart. And so it wasn't that he'd done anything wrong.

It's just somebody came along that was, you know, and I can't remember who it was, but who sort of beat him out for a seat. And it's really hard to get unelected in Chilliwack, really hard. It doesn't happen very often. And so, you know, as long as you keep your nose clean and keep it fairly close to the grindstone and don't get in too much trouble, you can stay. It's very hard to, like if all six people were running, it's very hard to break in. I think this time in local government, there's one person retiring, at least one retiring. So I think the other five people, remaining people, won't have any trouble at all getting reelected because they haven't done anything wrong. I mean, they haven't led the community in a bad direction or been associated with scandal or anything like that.

I think, you know, it's pretty tame our elections here locally. They don't seem to swing back and forth the way they do in provincial politics. So it's, I think, like four months to the upcoming election. Are people getting ready now? Like, I'm just curious as to you get to kind of see behind the curtain what's going on. Are people getting into campaign mode, reaching out to people? Is this the time or is it closer to the election? What is the sort of process?

It's October, right, that the election is taking? Yeah. Oh, yeah. People are getting ready now. Like there are people who are sort of putting their feelers out and seeing, you know, well, you know, I was thinking about, I mean, I always, I always think if you're, if you're, if you know you're going to run, let people know good and early. Because then when, whenever they do a story about the next person who's announced they're running, they always put your name in it. So they say, you know, Clint Hames has announced today that he's running. for a city council, he'll join Aaron Pete, who's also announced that last February that he was running as well. So you get the benefit of every new announcement because they always include the list of people that are running. So I always, you know, some people can get too cagey

and too coy about it. And, you know, if everybody knows you're running, just tell them you're running. If it's really a decision you're having to make, then that's okay. But most of the time, well, you know, I'll have to go and check with, this and my family and my bad,

and you know they're going to be running again. Do you know why they do that? Do you think it's like an enjoyment of like getting asked the question and having a secret? Or where does that come? Because Bud said the same thing. He was like, I'll have to see if people want to support me or not. And it was like,

I don't see why you wouldn't run. There's nothing to discourage you. Well, I think there's probably lots of reasons. I'm thinking back to me. I think, I mean, first and foremost, you want,

to be coy about it so that a whole bunch of people say you've got to run we really like what you're doing you know you want that kind of affirmation and hopefully by saying by being coy maybe you'll get a bunch of people say oh you've got to run you know don't be you know don't be silly we'll support you

maybe that's part of it I think that I've got a secret which means I've got a little more knowledge than you do so there's a little feeling of you know that secret and I got a little power here and attention you get, I don't know. But it's easy for me to say it in a position where I don't have to worry about it,

much harder if you're in that position and having to worry about it. Right. What would you like people to take away from your story? Because you've been so involved in the community in so many different ways. Like, I find when you talked about the Players Guild, I just find that so inspirational because I do think that when we look at like a Townsend Park or a community park, we expect the community members to be able to use that.

But we don't always see ourselves represented in the cultural center. So I see you as this steward for our community that maybe now people aren't aware of the involvement you have in the community in the same way, but that you still care so much. And so I'm just interested, what do you think people can take away from your story? Well, I think what I learned in this time that I've been here is that the road to success in building something like a community or a cultural center, something as small as a cultural center, or as broad as a community, or even broader as a country, the road to success is about including more people, not less, that the secret to being successful at anything you try to do is to include

everyone who's going to be impacted by what you're trying to do as much as possible. And that the biggest life lesson for me that I've learned, and it's taken a long time and I'm still learning it, is everybody has a gift to share. Everybody has something to contribute. And sometimes it's really hard to find with people. But the more you try to do that, the more they'll feel included and valued. It's just too easy to dismiss people, it's too easy to push them aside. I mean, I wish I could say I haven't pushed anybody aside and I haven't excluded people because I have, but I try not to, and I try to see value in everyone and to try to find the gift that somebody's trying to give in every situation.

And if we did that on a personal level and we do that on a broader level, on a community, level, if we're doing that as a cultural center, and we're saying, okay, this cultural center, we need to highlight the gifts that are in this community. How do we do that? Not necessarily highlight the gifts of people from other communities, although that can be a part of it. What we're trying to do is highlight the artistic gifts that people have in this community and share them and find value in them. How do we do that? If we start there with everything we do, we're going to be better off. So the word is inclusion. So

it's hard when we're being asked to include people we haven't usually included in our lives or our communities. It's really hard. But let me tell you, the secret is doing so and finding their gifts and allowing them to be shared, then we're a better community. Much better

community. The road to hell is paved with exclusion, with saying, this is a group that belongs here and this is a group that belongs here. and we'll separate everybody. That's a road to hell. The road to building a really sustainable and healthy community

starts with finding everyone's gifts and demanding, in fact, that they share it. I'll tell you the philosophy of my business, and it was an interesting one, because we had typically supported people in the kind of work that I was doing that were intellectually, disabled. There were lots of horrible labels that they were given. But the common thread was an

intellectual disability that made it more difficult for them to participate in the life of a community. Some of it was because they were discriminated against. Some was because they didn't have the intellectual capacity to contribute at a level that typically people did. Our response to that in the olden days was that we looked after those folks. We trained them very well and others to be passive receivers of our service. We trained their passus, you know, the passiveness in them. And with my agency, my company, we sat down together, the brain trust and said, there's something wrong with that. We should be demanding and expecting that each one of the people we support share their gift with the community. We should be

demanding of them. We should have an expectation that they make a contribution, however small. instead of this constant we'll look after you you're not expected to make a contribution we changed that with our agency and said everybody makes a contribution our job is to figure out what gift it is that they can share and we make them share it

and our expectation one of our value statements was higher expectations yield higher results and we expected everyone to participate And we had people with very limited intellectual capacity making contributions well beyond what they or anyone thought possible. Why? Because that was our expectation. We stopped this notion that just because you have a disability

or just because you are in this demographic, you passively accept our support and service. No, we expect from you that you, you make a contribution, tell us how we can help. And that's, I think, that philosophy is my personal philosophy. And you said it really well in the beginning when you talked about your mother and you and how what your life was like and how you had, there was an expectation you placed on yourself to take advantage of those things that were out there to give you support so that you could do something.

And that, I think that transcends. slates into what I'm saying, which is that, you know, we have to find people's gifts and make it possible for them to share them. And in fact, demand that they share them, have expectations on people. But we do that by telling them they have value and by including them, and then they want to. That is incredibly beautiful. I couldn't agree more when I talk about how we talk about homeless populations, I think it's the error that I see some make when we're sitting down with a person who's vulnerable and we say, do you want to get into treatment? Do you want to get this resource or that resource is like, why would you want to be clean? Like, why would you want to be healthy? What is your

life going to be when you get to put all of this behind you? And I think that's where we forget to ask people, what would your life look like if it was exactly what you wanted it to be? What what is your potential because maybe you're an artist, maybe you're an entrepreneur, maybe you're interested in the law or medicine, what can you bring to the table that we would all benefit from if you were to reach your full potential, whatever you want that to be. But I've seen as a native court worker, I've seen my colleagues just go, we're going to get you into treatment. And it's like, but why would they succeed at that if they have nothing that's motivating them

to get done the treatment so they can go on to be whatever contributing person that they can be in whatever measure works for them. It doesn't have to be that they go become a doctor, although let's try and set the standard higher so that they don't think of themselves as small and minute. I think that that's maybe the crisis that we're in right now. So many people don't feel like they contribute anything. They don't think their vote matters.

They don't think their opinion matters. We've gotten into this mindset if we don't have a lot to contribute. Well, and we have to find ways to add value to those folks so that they want to contribute. One of the more interesting enlightenment moments in my life was I had a brother who was older than me and he spent his adult life living and working in the downtown east side of Vancouver. At times he was an addict who was very struggled very much with his life. At other times he was trying to help other addicts. he lived and died in the downtown east side.

At one point, when I was mayor, I used to go and visit with him down there and offer support and just try to include him more in my life. And he said something very interesting to me. He said, you know, you look around as an outsider, you look around the downtown east side here and you look with scorn and you look with judgment. And he said, what you have to understand is, on an emotional level, for the people that are here, this is a healthier environment than the one that you want for them. And I had to think about that.

And he explained it by saying, in here, there's no judgment. The people who are addicts on the street surviving day to day see value in the other people who are addicts on the street surviving every day. They're friends, they help each other, they support each other, they help with tarps so that people can be out of the rain, they help with clothing, they help each other, they support each other, and they don't judge, they include each other. On an emotional level, this is very healthy for people here.

You take folks out of this environment and put them in your environment, nobody wants them there, they don't belong, they have no sense of being included or valued at all. Why would they trade that? Why would anybody, and you say, well, we'll put them into treatment, what does post-treatment look for folks? They're away from people they know. They're in environments they don't particularly find safe. They're not valued. They're not they're an ex-addict who's struggling, which environment would make more sense. So that's why I say it's about inclusion, it's about finding ways to value people, finding ways to include them, finding ways to welcome people into the community,

regardless of what they're bringing instead of stopping the judgment and stopping all of those other things. Easier said than done. And I appreciate that. But don't expect anybody who's living in a tent city to jump on housing. Because in that tent city, it's people they know. In many cases, people they trust. In many cases, people who don't judge them and people who include and value them, as opposed to moving into a housing where they don't. know anybody, they're not sure about the people around them, they don't know, they certainly don't necessarily feel valued. So it's, on an emotional level, it's very difficult. So we have a lot of lessons to learn about, you know, it's easier to embrace people with minor

differences. It's very much harder to start expanding those margins I talked about and saying, okay, how do we include these folks as well? That is incredibly well said. Can you tell people you also do Chill TV, and I think you're coming out with another season. Would you mind sharing that with that? No, no, not at all. Chill TV is a local online streaming television station,

and they're doing some pretty interesting and sophisticated work. They've got a regular news show, and they have a kind of current affairs department. I've helped them out with interviews with local politicians during election seasons and hosted evenings when the elections are on. And they asked me some time ago if I would do a talk show and interview some of those politicians, which I did. It was a, I think we did 24 episodes of something called Hames Hot Mike and I interviewed politicians, not unlike what you're doing, only shorter versions of that. And more recently, I said, you know, we should be, we should look at some. issue-focused shows, and I'd like to get another perspective.

So I asked Paul Henderson, who's the editor of the Chilliwack Progress, to join me as a co-host. And we've been taping some shows that are more issues-focused. One of the issues that we've taped is talking about crime and public safety in the community. And Aaron, thank you for being a guest and bringing your perspective as a lawyer and court worker to that show. We did a show on the agricultural land reserve and housing prices. And is there a context that we can look at that shows that having the land reserve is a benefit on one side, but it's certainly raising the price of land on the other. And that was a very interesting show. That should be out very soon. We did a show on housing and looked at affordable

housing and what are the issues involved in affordable housing? And some very, very cool guests for that, including a gentleman named Kishon Roy, who is running for city council in Vancouver. He's a housing advocate in Vancouver and has a long history of working in government in affordable housing, CMHC, and places like that. So he brought a very interesting perspective, along with Danielle Boussela, who is a local realtor and someone involved in a number of housing projects. So that series of interviews along with a couple of others, we have planned.

One on inclusion, one that I'm really excited about putting together talking about some of the issues we talked about in terms of inclusion. That will be coming up. I believe the first ones are coming out in mid-June. So I'm not sure when this airs, but it

is when we'll be doing that. Brilliant. Can you tell people how they can find you on social media platforms, Twitter? No. I have a Facebook account, and it's just my name, Clint Hames, and I have a Twitter account, which is just at Clint Hames with no space. And that's the only social media. I think I actually do have an Instagram, maybe, I don't know,

I started to get lost and all that stuff. But I also, one of the things we haven't talked about, and I would be remiss if I didn't, is that one of the coolest things I get to do these days is play guitar and a rock band. Tell us about that. And the name of the band is Judy Tuesday. And people thought it might be an homage to the Rolling Stone's song Ruby Tuesday, but it really isn't the leader of our band,

keyboard and arranger is named Judy. And we practiced on Tuesday. So it just sort of fell in, oh, that'd be a cool name. But we've been really having a lot of fun. We started as a pit orchestra for a British Music Hall review and said we read. really enjoyed playing together. And then we started getting bookings and people said, hey, could you come and do this and could you come and do that? So we do a lot of 1960s, British invasion

and American rock music. And so we're just booked like crazy. So here I am approaching my old age having to play rock and roll in smoky bars. And it's kind of fun. I got to admit, we're having a ball. So we play a lot of private events where people want some music. music. And so, you know, what a joy. I've always played guitar and sometimes more seriously than others. But imagine into my 60s and living the life of a rock star. It's a lot of fun. Yeah. Can people book you? Can they hear your music? Oh, yeah. Actually, you can check out our Facebook page, which is at Judy Tuesday. And we have a website, judytoesday.ca, and there's examples and samples of our music all over the, all over the face, or all over the website.

And I think we have a YouTube thing, but I'm, you know, it's not my area, but I think we have a YouTube channel with a bunch of clips of shows and things like that. So all you need to know is you can find on there. That's amazing. Did you, was this kind of came out of nowhere for you, being able to produce music in this way? Well, it's, it came. out of the theater experience. I mean, I've

over the last 40 or 50 years that I've been involved in doing community theater and university theater and some professional theater, um, we'd been producing these British Music Hall reviews over the years

we called them British Knights and their combination of sort of comedy skits and they were often old British musical songs, Vera Lynn and those kinds of things. And we used to attract this audience of older folks who used to love and love to come and listen to the old songs and drink beer and have a nice pub lunch and go home.

And it was a great thing for the Theatre Guild to do. And we did them for 25, 30 years. We were doing them. Then they kind of, when we built the new cultural center, there wasn't really an environment for them and we'd stopped for a couple of years. And then we figured out a way to do them again. And we were sitting around strategizing and somebody said, well, you know, we got to haul out some of that old music.

and I said, you know, guys, the music that we think is new from the 1960s is really old music. And we should do something that's kind of like a, have the theme of it being more the British invasion, the 1960s music, that, you know, that's people 60 years old, right? So I'll bet they'd really enjoy it. So it meant going away from sort of a piano as the central music for the show into a pit orchestra. And I knew all that music from my music from my music. youth that played it all. So I said, you know, I could probably strum it out on a guitar and I knew a bass player and I knew a drummer and a regular keyboard player for the British night said,

well, that would be fun. Why don't we put a little combo together and do it? And so the next three that we did all featured this combo and we've just had a ball from there. And we sort of were willing to kind of let it die, but then, you know, this group said, hey, could you guys come and play? And could you guys come and play? And now this year we're, I don't know, we're 20 or 30 dates, between now and September. Oh, my gosh. And, yeah, and they make you stay up until 10 o'clock a night. It's awful.

So it's a, but we're having fun. That's incredible. And the Players Guild, I think you have some plays coming up as well. We have a show coming up. We just finished a couple of productions. We just did Calendar Girls, which is a wonderful show, and it was sold out and very well received. And we did a show for a drama festival that's held every year.

and that show was called Marjorie Prime and that just finished and it won four different awards in this festival. It's an adjudicated festival and so that was very successful and in the fall we're doing a political comedy called The Outsider and it was originally scheduled for November 2020 which would have been interesting because it coincided with the American election

and it's about I won't give away too much but there's a candidate who should not be a candidate because it's just not prepared enough to do that who gets talked into being a political candidate in a very high political office. And the play is about trying to polish the edges off this guy and get them in a position of being a candidate. It was just sort of reminiscent of something that went on in 2020 in the U.S.

I can't remember exactly what. So it would have been fun. But that'll be in, I think, early November 2022. Is that where we are now? Yes, we are. Yeah. That is absolutely amazing. Clint, I really appreciate you being willing to share your perspective on what community looks like, how we develop, and how we can bring people together. Because I think that's the message we need to hear more of when we talk about people aren't voting, people aren't getting involved, people are complaining about issues. the first step is to figure out what role you can play. And you've been willing to play that role to step up in moments and be the voice of the community,

but also to see the gems in our community and put them forward into positions where they can make a difference. And I think that that role maybe goes under-recognized of saying, like, hey, you know what, I think you could bring something to the table in this role, and our community would be better off because so many people think their opinion doesn't matter. matter. And so they'd never think to say to someone, you would play such a beautiful role in our community and that would be amazing. And I think some people have trouble being willing to say that someone else can bring something that maybe they can't or because it takes away from them. There's a fear of saying something nice about someone else because then maybe it doesn't say something about nice about me or there's always that fear that people have of speaking up and

saying something good about another. And I think you just said an amazing example of working for the community, your whole life, and finding ways to include others. And I think that that's just so inspiring for other people. Well, you know, Chilliwack has a few warts and foibles, but I have to tell you, my experience in not having lived other places, but certainly been everywhere across this country and politically been in many other places and looked at things that are happening politically and looked at the way other communities are governed and looked at the way other communities have developed. And we, are just so fortunate here. We have no idea, I don't think, on a general basis, what an

amazing community this is. It's well governed. It doesn't suffer the backs and forwards of places that we can look at to the west where there's political confrontation at every council meeting. We also have some of the best facilities. Every time this city has done something for the last 25 years, the theory and philosophy has been, let's do the best we can. Because we owe it to our community to not cheap out. Let's do the best we can. And we have things like pump tracks and curling rinks and cultural centers that are the envy of other communities. And we have an amazing place here. And I'm not sure that everyone understands how lucky we are. Well, again, It's not luck.

It's good planning and it's good fortune. Yeah, there's lots of things that we could improve. And let's hope we all work together to do that. But boy, I can't think of another place. I'd rather live. I just can't. This is such a wonderful part of the world. And it's people like you, Aaron, I think, and let me say thank you, that keep it that way.

Because your voice is out there talking about things that need to be talked about. and your voice is out there a setting example for people that you might represent that you unknowingly represent in saying I can achieve something with my life and I'm really excited about the things that you're doing

and let me be the first to say you might consider putting your name forward at some point in the future for politics I think you'd do an excellent job because you understand what a great community is Absolutely. I really appreciate the kind words. I'd be more than happy to moderate the debates, but I don't think I have the personality for such an important role, but I love that people like yourself are willing to put your name forward and to see where the community can develop and grow and what's needed. And so I really appreciate you being willing to take the time. This is the first time out of the podcast studio for me in the while. So I appreciate you being willing to take the time and share such an amazing story.

My pleasure. Thank you, Aaron. Thank you. How was that? We just did two hours and 40 minutes. Good.