This week Pique Newsmagazine published a profile of me. Luke Faulks took the time to listen, and he got it right: the two suitcases, the restaurant kitchen, losing the job and the staff housing in the same week, the Re-Use-It Centre, the Food Bank, three years on the housing waitlist — and Pemberton. Thank you, Luke.
If you read one paragraph, read this one:
“In my current position, I can help with getting people bananas or oranges or apples. But if I really want to help the people who struggle, I need to be in a different position. I think council is one place where I can help.”
That is why I am running, in three sentences.
The rest of the article is what I have been saying at the tables and at the microphone these two weeks. Housing that is cheaper to build and possible to own, not only to rent — and not only in Cheakamus. A bus home after a ten o’clock shift, because today the last one leaves just after nine. A free outdoor place to train, by a park or a lake. A place in Whistler for seniors who have no family in town. Property taxes that are examined, not assumed. And evacuation practice that happens often enough that people actually know what to do.
The line I would underline is the last one. Four years from now I want to be measured against exactly these things:
“If I did something on half of them, I can say I tried my best. Then let’s go try again and finish the half I’m missing.”
That is a promise I can keep. Whistler votes on Saturday, October 17 — advance voting is open on October 7 and 10 at the library. You have six votes for Council. I’m asking for one of them.