Public Life: In the Service of the People

In public life, it’s often like being Don Quixote, but someone has to tilt at those windmills!

Public life as the Impossible Dream

This is my quest, to follow that star
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far
To fight for the right without question or pause
To be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause

And I know if I’ll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I’m laid to my rest

From The Impossible Dream

Sometimes, governments listen to members of the public, believe it or not.

Last week, I had the honour of being introduced by the Minister of Local Government in the New Brunswick Legislature, in recognition of my contribution to the reform of the Province’s archaic property tax system.

I’d written a book and numerous articles and did several presentations and media interviews on this subject over a three-year period. Of course, it helps when they hear the same recommendations from other sources — makes me look like I might actually know what I’m talking about.

I was even more honoured when the Minister sent his executive assistant up to the visitor’s gallery to find me so he could introduce himself and have his EA take the photo above. It was a pretty good day.

Not the first time I’d been introduced in the public gallery

I experienced that same honour in the Alberta Legislature twice over a certain period some years ago, by members of two different parties, if you can imagine.

But those public introductions were due to partisan work I was doing in each case; the intro in the NB Legislature was for successful nonpartisan advocacy in the public sphere. A bigger deal, in my view.

I’m 67, so my work on property tax reform in New Brunswick is likely my last major kick at the can in any aspect of public life. In some ways, it was the culmination of a lifetime interest—a drive — to work in the service of the people.

Nice that someone thought I still had something to contribute to the public conversation toward the end of my seventh decade.

Where does this lifetime drive to serve the public come from?

Well, my parents subscribed to the newspaper, watched the news, and my mother listened to a public affairs program on the radio as she went about her domestic business every morning. I was therefore generally aware of who the Prime Minister of Canada and the Premier of Manitoba (my province of birth) were, even as young as 5.

By age 9, I was quite aware of the excitement surrounding the election of a new Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, as well as of what was happening in the US, with the two assassinations that year and all the unrest surrounding the Vietnam War.

By 14, my buddy and I helped several candidates in the 1973 Manitoba election, my first taste of actual campaigning. At 18, we were working full-shoes for one particular candidate — same for me at 20, in 1979, after I’d moved to Alberta just in time for a provincial election there.

1979 was also the year I started university. Unsurprisingly, my minor was political science, with history (yesterday’s politics) winning out in the battle for my major.

Obviously, politics and public life in one form or another were in my blood.

The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
Plato

Public life takes a back seat – but only for a while

First term

After I graduated from university with a master’s in history, participating in politics and public life took a back seat to building a couple of careers and navigating a couple of marriages. I had moved to a small Alberta village (pop. 400), and was focussed on parenting my young daughter, building a financial services business, and playing recreational hockey.

Then, in late 2001, when I was 42, a friend who also lived in the village called to say they needed a fifth person on Village Council. I was intrigued, especially since I’d just sold my financial services business and had some extra time.

But the offer came with a catch: they wanted me to serve as Mayor (in Alberta villages, the Council elects the Mayor)! I was terrified, as I had never even served on Council, but I crossed my fingers that I would grow into this very public position. What else could I do?

So my first foray into elected office of any kind was easy because I was acclaimed (and municipal positions were nonpartisan in those days), but it included baptism by fire.

I fulfilled my three-year term in 2004 without much ado and decided to pursue other, non-public service interests. But I very quickly grew disillusioned with the new Council and decided to run again in 2007. This time, I had opponents, so I had to work to get elected. Fortunately, I won relatively easily.

Second term

But my second term was not like my first, as Council faced numerous difficult issues. The job of Chief Administrative Officer had become far more demanding over time, so we needed to hire a new person there. We also needed a new municipal building and needed to restructure the system of who reported to whom so that we would be compliant with the Municipal Government Act.

The volunteer fire department didn’t much like that kind of public accountability, as they had always been able to call their own shots. Now, not only did they have to report to someone, but that someone was a woman. Oh, the humanity.

We, as a Council, accomplished many good things that term, but the Fire Department decided to band as many people as possible together to ensure that a) I was defeated in the 2010 election (I was), and b) that the problematic fire chief was elected to Council himself (don’t ask me how that was possible).

This all meant that I’d hit the political grand slam of public office in the two non-consecutive terms I served: I won by acclamation in 2001, I decided to step away of my own accord in 2004, I won a contested election in 2007, and I was defeated in 2010.

Public life behind the scenes

After that, I ventured into the non-elected side of provincial politics and public office. I co-managed a campaign for a very good candidate from one party in 2008, but he lost.

Then, in my work as Mayor, I became friends with the Member of the Legislature to whom we’d lost in 2008. The MLA and I were pretty compatible philosophically, so I had no qualms about eventually supporting him.

He decided to run for leader of his party in 2011 (which meant he would automatically have become Premier, had he won), so I joined his team in a senior role in that quest. He didn’t win, but he performed well enough to parlay that effort into a Cabinet post.

Then, in the 2012 general election, I was co-manager of his personal re-election campaign, which he won, as did his party at the provincial level.

So, between the ages of 42 and 53, I experienced every imaginable up-and-down in public life. And I’m barely scratching the surface here of all the things I did politically in that period.

Why not run provincially or federally?

People often asked me why I never ran for public office provincially (to become a Member of the Legislature) or federally (to become a Member of Parliament). The simple answer was that I lived in an area in Alberta where the party banner I would have run under was anathema to the vast majority of voters there (don’t get me started).

Same would have been true federally — I wouldn’t have stood a chance at either level, and I wasn’t going to prostitute myself by shying away from things I believed in, just to try achieving elected office.

I felt that I was getting plenty accomplished in public life behind the scenes, so getting elected just wasn’t that important to me.

Serving the public in a couple of different ways

In 2013, I had the opportunity to coach youth basketball, which I eagerly jumped at, leaving the public life of politics behind. Of course, I always kept an eye on what was going on, but I was too busy running my business, enjoying the coaching gig, serving a couple of terms on the University of Alberta Senate, and preparing for our move to New Brunswick in 2019.

The very enjoyable University Senate gig fulfilled my need to contribute to public life in some way, but I had no interest in going beyond that.

Then, when we moved here to New Brunswick, I immediately began working for the provincial government, which meant I needed to be very careful about participating in public life. The biggest problem was that I worked in the property tax system (as a property assessor), which meant I couldn’t say anything public about it.

And it was killing me, because the system absolutely sucked.

To make a long story short (I’m sure you were hoping I’d say that at some point), I retired from that position and immediately began writing about all the suckage. I was finally free to say what was on my mind to the public at large.

Which I did, ultimately leading to my day at the New Brunswick Legislature, described above.

Tilting at those public windmills

This all means that I’ve tilted at my share of windmills over the years, with at least some of those efforts bearing fruit. Not everyone is cut out for public life, although I might argue that more people should dip a toe in that pool, even if only to see what political decision-making looks like from the other side of the table.

Discussion for another time.

As Don Quixote says in Man of La Mancha, the mission of each true knight — “nay, his privilege” — is to serve (he also talks about “loving pure and chaste from afar,” but we’ll just forget about that).

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star

My life has been full for many reasons, not the least of which are the opportunities I’ve had to make a tiny difference in my various corners of the world.

“Scorned and covered with scars” or not, it’s been a dream-come-true in public life, and I’m grateful I’ve had the chance.