ward3brighton.ca

I got a call at lunch from Terry Allen, host of Point of View on Eastlink television (channel 10). I will be interviewed by phone on tonight’s show, November 7th, just after 7:00pm. I believe I’ll be asked generally about my experience as a first-time political campaigner.

I’m too busy right now to write much, but I’d just like to express my appreciation to all the residents of Ward 3. I’m looking forward to working on behalf of Brighton. It was a pleasure meeting so many of you, and my only regret is that I underestimated how much time would be required to visit every house in the ward. I simply ran out of door-knocking days, but I estimate I reached about 80% of households in the ward.

When I have time I’d like to catch up on some stories I wanted to share here. Campaign blogging took a backseat occasionally to some of the dozens of other tasks I was juggling throughout the last four weeks.

Thank you!

I had an interesting experience last Friday night with a family of recent Chinese immigrants in the ward. After explaining who I was and why I was there, with my campaign print material as a prop and using rudimentary English and hand gestures, we quickly established the family was ineligible to vote. The youngest daughter seemed to relish the opportunity to practice her English. She managed to convey that she was studying at UPEI. I was introduced to each — the mother and two daughters — and attempted to repeat back to them their very difficult to pronounce names.

Before long I was coaxed into their living room and directed to a fax machine which apparently had confounded them. At this point I wondered if they had really understood everything I had told them. Had they been expecting a fax repair man? After ten minutes of fiddling and referencing the manual, I had setup and tested the fax machine, and trained them in making copies, sending faxes, and phone calls — all amid much giggling and incomprehensible Chinese whispering behind my back.

In the middle of all this I received a call from one of my Handlers. He was quite amused as I explained my predicament as though nobody else was in the room: “I’m standing in a living room full of people who don’t speak English, fixing their fax machine”. Just more smiles, nods, and giggles.

As I left, I was presented, very ceremoniously, with a shiny package of Chinese Wrigley’s chewing gum. The other side of the duplex was occupied by another ineligible-to-vote immigrant family, but their English was excellent and they had no malfunctioning appliances, so I was happy to sit and chat with them in their living room.

I’ve passed another campaign milestone — my signs are up! My friend Doug volunteered his time, tools and truck for the cause. My four year-old, Brodie, came along to hand out nails, nuts, bolts and washers from the bed of the truck at each location.

As you may have gathered from the abundance of lumber surrounding many of the large campaign signs of the different candidates, it can be difficult to balance and support these top-heavy structures, particularly when the ground is soggy and the wind is blowing hard. Our first location turned out to be somewhat of a trial in which we quickly identified the flaws in our technique and corrected them. I think they’re pretty solid now.

This website saw a small surge in traffic on Monday. I assume people noticed the web address on my signs as they made their way to work and decided to drop by for a visit. A few of my friends and colleagues wanted to know one thing in particular: Did I find it weird to see my giant head posted on roadsides all around the neighbourhood? The answer is yes, it’s a little weird.

Tonight I decided to canvas cul-de-sacs only, for no particular reason. I went to Rose Moore Crt, Wyndwood Cr, and Orchard Crt. I didn’t cover a lot of ground, but I forgave myself because it was such a miserable rainy night.

I’m starting to accumulate a lot of homework. Several interest groups have forwarded surveys for me to answer, which will then be posted to their various websites. Most indicate they will recommend to their membership a preferred candidate based on the  answers they receive (or don’t receive, though the recommendation should be fairly obvious if a candidate fails to reply). Right now I have three surveys outstanding. CUPE would like to know how I feel about the CARI complex and their suggestion that the City’s Department of Recreation should own and operate the facility, rather than CARI. The PEI Council of the Disabled emailed a survey concerning a number of important issues affecting the disabled, and the PEI Federation of Labour is inviting me to participate in a survey which would then be followed up with an interview. I intend to respond to all requests, but finding the time to first inform myself fully on various issues is going to be challenging. I could fire off the first answer that comes to mind but I don’t think that’s my wisest course of action.

Timothy’s will be conducting a coffee poll this week on the race in Ward 3, so rally the coffee troops and get yourselves down to Kent street this coming Friday, October 20th. And vote for me!

I’m meeting some fascinating people on my door knocking adventures but this past Saturday was particularly fun. I spent upwards of an hour inside the beautiful Brighton Commons home of Robert and Pauline Norburn. Bob is a British engineer who was the central figure in a 1980’s Canadian defense industry scandal that nearly ruined him financially and personally. He blew the whistle on quality assurance issues at Fleet Aerospace, the defense contractor that employed him in Fort Erie, Ontario to certify the safety and reliability of F-18 fighter jet components they manufactured. It was the beginning of a six year ordeal in which he was fired, blacklisted, bankrupted, threatened, and the victim of an assassination attempt. An F-18 with Fleet components that Bob refused to certify — under enormous pressure to do so — crashed here on PEI in Malpeque Bay in 1986, killing the pilot.

He eventually testified for a US Defense Department investigation into defective parts sold by Fleet, giving private testimony to Casper Weinberger, Barry Goldwater, and Ted Kennedy, among others. In the end, Bob was vindicated, but it was no doubt due in large part to his unusually strong character. It’s been a long time since I met someone with such a forceful personality; he’s as forthright as a hammer.

Bob made news in Britain two years ago after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and denied a life saving procedure by the NHS. He was fortunate enough to be able to pay for the treatment privately but I gather the experience left him very bitter. Having only recently moved to PEI, it now appears Bob is ready to train his sights on the troubling problem of doctor shortages on PEI, a problem he believes exists only because of an appalling lack of will to fix it. I believe Islanders will be familiar with Bob’s name soon. He has a history of standing his ground and fighting hard when he knows he is right.

Bob was featured not long ago on the British reality show Dragon’s Den — a formula show that spawned ABC’s American Inventor (which also features an Island connection in judge Doug Hall, CEO of Eureka Ranch and sometime summer resident of PEI). It seems Bob reinvented himself after his engineering career as a hugely successful exporter of cosmetics and perfumes, and then spent seven years — after cutting himself shaving — formulating a new type of shaving cream to bring shaving “out of the dark ages and into the 21st Century”. This is the product he pitched on Dragon’s Den.

So after an intense hour of interesting discussion on everything from politics to Internet radio, and a dozen things in between, I left Bob’s house very much less intimidated then when he first started lecturing me in his kitchen, and with a shopping bag full of the best damn shaving cream on the market.

After canvassing door-to-door tonight I stopped at Brighton Clover Farm to get a drink before heading home. There were two police cars there and officers were taking statements regarding a robbery that took place very shortly before I arrived. Break-ins and robberies are noticeably on the rise in this ward. Along with traffic safety concerns, this is a big issue with residents I speak with. There’s very little anyone can do to stop someone who’s determined to commit a crime, and the increase in these types of crimes is certainly a symptom of bigger problems than the municipality is capable of dealing with alone. But increasingly I’m hearing residents express a desire to have a greater police presence on our streets. Photo radar is good for catching speeders but it does little to deter thieves and vandals.

I received a few premature congratulations today after it was reported in the Guardian that Philip Brown is leaving city politics. I was quite confident that I would not be left unchallenged, and to be honest I think it should be a source of embarrassment to our city that occasionally city council seats are filled by acclamation. So I was not surprised or disappointed to find out this evening another candidate was busily gathering signatures around the ward for his nomination papers today. There will be a race after all.

I just received a phone call to inform me that Philip Brown, the current councillor for Ward 3, stood up tonight at the last council meeting before the election to announce he will not be re-offering. I had been hearing this rumour for several weeks, and it now appears to be confirmed. I know Philip worked tirelessly for the residents of this ward, and I’m sure he will continue to serve his community in many ways in the future. I wish him all the best.

I have to agree with Councillor Bruce Garrity’s observation on CBC radio this morning: Speeding, running of red lights, general dangerous driving; these issues are at — or near — the top of the list of concerns expressed by residents when I meet them at their door.