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Up close and personal with John Reynolds

Andrew Mitchell one on one with out-going M.L.A. John Reynolds

The John Reynolds I spoke to earlier this month didn’t sound like a man who has retired from politics.

That’s because in a lot of ways Reynolds is more involved than ever. The 63-year-old MP for the West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky riding has agreed to chair the Conservative Party of Canada’s 2006 federal election campaign. Now he has two phones going at all times, and uses the commutes between events to talk to the media.

For Reynolds, the attention is well deserved.

His political career goes back to 1972, when he was elected to the House of Commons as the Progressive Conservative representative for Burnaby-Richmond-Delta. Since then he has served two terms as an MLA, including a term as the provincial Minister of Environment, and three more terms in Parliament with various conservative parties – Reform, Alliance, and now the Conservative Party of Canada.

Among other positions, Reynolds has been a shadow minister for Citizenship and Immigration and Fisheries and Oceans, the Chief Opposition Whip, and, since 2001, the Official Opposition House Leader.

After the Jan. 23 federal election, he will officially be retired from politics, although it’s difficult to imagine politics without Reynolds, or Reynolds without politics.

Pique: Why did you decide to retire after so many years?

John Reynolds: I guess age is a little factor. If I ran for another term that was five years I’d be 68 or 69, and I felt that I’d really like to spend some more time with my children, grandchildren.

I’ve donated a lot of years to public service, over 25 elected years, and it was just time to make that decision and let the younger people take over.

Pique: Was it hard to leave, with the resurgence of the Conservatives?

JR: I’m running the campaign for the party, I’m chair, and that very much keeps me in touch with the party and the leader of the party. If we’re successful, as we expect to be, then I’ll be running the next campaign, so I will be very involved with the party and the leader of the party, I just won’t be serving in Parliament the next four or five years.

Pique: Looking back, why is it you decided to get into politics in the first place?

JR: I’ve been involved since around 1970. I just didn’t like Trudeau’s policies and the way he treated small businesses – I was a small businessman then. I ran for that reason, and was lucky enough to get elected the first time I ran and I’ve been doing it ever since, with the odd break in between to do other things.

Pique: Have politics changed? Are issues the same as they were?

JR: Amazingly enough the issues don’t change a lot. In the ’70s capital punishment was an issue, and it’s no longer an issue. But it was an issue because crime was an issue, so on that basis some things don’t change. The economy is always an issue, taxation is always an issue, but Parliament has changed a little bit in some ways. Not enough as far as I’m concerned.

I was very hopeful when Paul Martin was running in his leadership race, he talked about this democratic deficit, and changes to the way Parliament ran and free votes, but since he’s become Prime Minister he’s done none of that.

I would expect to see a few changes in Parliament when Steve Harper becomes Prime Minister. He will allow more free votes, start fuller debates in the House of Commons, so I think that’s a very positive thing.

Pique: It seems like the dialogue has become a lot more aggressive and that people who run for government are subject to a lot more in terms of attack ads and smear campaigns. Has it really changed, or has it always been fairly aggressive?

JR: I think that’s true, and I think a lot of that has to do with television and people looking for a quick, 15 second clip. If you’re good at it, it’s an advantage today, there’s no question of that.

So there’s one major change, which I’m not sure is for the general good. It cuts down on good policy debate.

I think one good example is Jack Layton screaming and yelling about private health care. Then all of a sudden on the weekend he makes a statement that no, if we were voted in we wouldn’t close down any private health care. For years these guys have been talking about this, and they’re lying to the bone. We’ve had two-tiered health care in Canada for the past 30 years, just nobody wanted to admit it. So for this election, finally everyone admits that we already do have two tiers of health care out there, and what we have to do is to get the basic stuff fixed up.

Pique: You’re stepping down from what is looking like a fairly contentious riding. What advice do you give the person who is elected and follows you?

JR: I’ve spoken to (Conservative) John Weston about this, but we have to get him elected first. I think he will do it, he’s an extremely bright man, a dedicated person, a lawyer who has done a lot of great work with the First Nations people, he’s up on constitutional law, he speaks Chinese, French. So he’s certainly well-qualified for the job.

I expect, since the current government is dealing with these scandals – this is the most scandal-plagued government in the history of Canada – that people will want a change. Sixty-five per cent of people in the latest poll want a change, so this isn’t the right time to be voting Liberal. Based on that Steve Harper is likely going to be prime minister.

Pique: You’ve made a reputation for yourself of being there for your constituents, maybe more than a lot of other MPs. Is that you, or do you view it as something that goes with the job?

JR: I’ve enjoyed all my years in politics. I remember, as a provincial MLA, getting Whistler off the ground. When I first was elected Whistler was in receivership, we actually had to appoint an administrator and fire the council, and people forget those days because things have been pretty good since then. Chester Johnson, the administrator, did a great job getting the place together.

There were tough times and exciting times, working with people on the Olympics – which was a really non-partisan thing that we did – working with all parties to get things organized. I remember way back when in Ottawa, sitting down with senators and members of Parliament from B.C. and agreeing to work together to do everything we could to help the committee get the Olympics.

I remember being in Whistler on the day where we got the Olympics, sitting there with John Fraser, a former speaker of the Legislature, and on stage was his daughter who was one of the people working for it. There were a few tears in our eyes those days, tears of jubilation.

But mostly I remember just helping people.

I remember we had that terrible accident in Squamish, and a number of the family were not being allowed in the country, I helped to get that done in a short time.

It helps to have lots of years of experience, you know who to phone to get things done.

Pique: It seems like you went out of your way to do things for constituents, and that no issue was to small.

JR: No issue is too small, if it’s your issue it’s the biggest issue in your life. Sometimes people call you and it seems like it’s a pretty small matter, but for the person calling it’s a big issue. I’ve always looked at things that way in life – if someone calls you with a problem it’s the biggest problem in their life, and I work hard to try and solve it for them. That’s what you get paid for.

Pique: You mentioned a few things, like the Olympics, but are there any milestones from your career that you’re particularly proud of?

JR: Those issues I’m proud of, the Olympics and Whistler itself, but also the new growth in Squamish and Sunshine Coast.

I was leader of the opposition – that riding never had anybody who reached that level in federal politics.

I’ve been leader of the opposition in the House of Commons when our party was in the midst of a leadership race. Those were very good days, as house leader, as the whip of the party, as part of the administration of the House of Commons, being on the board of the House Affairs Committee and the Board of Internal Economy. Those were good positions and ones that I thoroughly enjoyed.

I must say I enjoyed my life in politics, including my time in the B.C. Legislature. It’s always nice when both sides of the House elect you to be speaker. It’s an honour and a privilege and a very wonderful experience.

Being minister of the environment – when I was minister we made a lot of major changes in B.C., including the cleaning up of pulp mills. Those were very exciting times and I have a lot of good memories.

Pique: Are there any major regrets? Things you were pushing for or backing that didn’t go through?

JR: Never in my life have I worried about regrets, I just keep on moving forward.

Pique: People have this perception, because this current election is so contested, and there’s the sponsorship scandal, that Parliament is a little dysfunctional, but then you see on the last day of Parliament that parties worked together to push a number of things through. Is it mostly co-operative in Parliament, or as divisive as it sometimes seems?

JR: Ninety per cent of the time it’s members working together for what they believe in. People never see what happens in the committees. We just started televising that, that’s one of the changes I made on the Board of Internal Economy. We have an agreement where, finally, we’re going to start broadcasting the debates in the committees, and I think that will be very beneficial because the committees get away from all the yelling and screaming and get into talking about the bills and where they’re going.

Question period is very divisive, because that’s the showtime of the day, but the rest of the time it’s a lot of hard work.

Pique: You’ve been in federal politics now with four different parties, and recently while the conservatives were actually forming a real opposition party by uniting Conservatives and the Alliance. What role did you have in putting the conservative parties together under one roof?

JR: I played my part, as much as anyone else. But if it hadn’t been for the work I did as the leader of the opposition and keeping my own party together at the time, we never would have got that far. The final tribute goes to Stephen Harper. There were many, like Peter MacKay and myself that worked very hard behind the scenes, but Stephen Harper had the vision, he got it done, and now he’s going to be prime minister.

Pique: Looking at the polls there’s a good chance there’s going to be another minority government. Is there a chance this minority government will work better than the last one?

JR: Oh, I think if Stephen Harper is the leader of it you’ll get a cut in the GST, and you’ll see a number of positive things. One of the laws he’s looking to bring in would cut corporate donations and donations from unions. We’ll make sure that no longer will the power brokers of this country run the political parties, which I think is fairly positive.

I think, whenever the next election is, that he’ll turn that minority into a majority.

Pique: A lot of this election is based on the sponsorship scandal and the issue of cronyism. Is the party committed to tackling that?

JR: Our job in this election is to set out a very positive agenda so far and we intend to keep it that way. We’ve gone through crime, the GST, and (recently) we announced a program for childcare and how we’re going to fund that.

We want to get rid of the cronyism, which is why the first bill we’ll bring forward will get rid of corporate and union donations, and it will mean that any senior retiring minister or senior civil servant will have to wait five years before they can take a job lobbying the government. I think that will eliminate that cronyism issue.

Pique: Last question. You mentioned earlier that you’ve served in government for 25 years, you’ve seen a lot of the country. Did it help you to develop a deeper appreciation for the country and the people, and for coming home to B.C. in general?

JR: I’ve been all over the world, there’s nowhere I haven’t been in my personal or my private career. There’s no finer recreation place than Whistler – nowhere in the world can you go to get the quality of skiing, and in the summertime the quality of golf. I live on the Sunshine Coast, and Gibsons on the Sunshine Coast is one of the unique areas of Canada where you can grow flowers all year round. We live in a spectacular province and a great country.