On the same day this city reclaimed its Murder Capital of Canada epithet, and Statistics Canada revealed we’re one of the country’s most violent places to call home, George W. Peary apologizes for running three minutes late for a lunch date.
Abbotsford’s mayor, seemingly in damage control mode since replacing The Other George in 2008, has been up early trying to make sense out of complex numbers relating to crime, taxes, budgets and civic proposals.
With his busy day just warming up, he has already been vilified by Today website scribblers, social bloggers, several Vancouver radio shows and the usual letter-writing suspects who, like cabbies and hairdressers, don’t understand why they are not running our country.
Peary looks fit, rested and in good spirits while we break bread across the street from City Hall, the perfect location as he enters Day 2 of a week-long car-free challenge with three other Metro Vancouver politicians.
A friendly waitress advises this scribe to treat her “favourite customer” well. Peary assures her not to worry because he “never argues with people who buy ink by the barrel.”
Well, that’s not entirely true (wink, wink), but like all personable politicians, he certainly enjoys a great debate. And unlike most in today’s much-too-scripted, spin-doctored world, he returns calls and e-mails no matter how bad headlines and commentaries are in the morning. It’s just the way he rolls in our Gangland in the Country.
After offering up a few Winston Churchill motivational quotes, Peary admits life in the “hot seat” is extra challenging when dealing with a civic cash scenario easily mistaken for Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard.
Asked if he’s enjoying wearing the Chain of Command bling during this Great Recession, the mayor is blunt: “The way I look at it, is if somebody has to occupy the chair in tough times, it might as well be me.”
Infamous for such Peary-isms as “I’m not young enough to know everything,” and “Our new arena would have looked much better with a real parking lot,” the mayor’s best line came as a councillor several years ago when he promised during a slump in the economy: “I refuse to let this thing die on my watch.”
He said Tuesday that’s still his mantra, which, if nothing else, helps him cope as critics pump up the volume on the city’s spending habits, salaries, user fees, gangs, gas taxes and, of course, Plan A.
During his campaign last fall, he admitted the latter expenditure would “put a real constraint on the council of the future.” It has, and during lunch he hinted the “on time, on budget” cheer chanted by his peers may prove to be only wishful thinking when final numbers are revealed in a couple weeks.
Despite making some enemies over the years with his no-nonsense, shoot-from-the-lip style, Peary is intelligent, politically savvy, passionate and relentless. The Abbotsford Regional Hospital and Cancer Centre is an example of what happens when you tell this guy “it’s never going to happen.”
He spent 21 years lobbying and fighting for that impressive facility, being told by several premiers and governments along the way that it just wasn’t in the cards. Whatever. So, when critics suggest he’ll be Dead Mayor Walking if he continues to do things his way, you just know he’s got them exactly where he wants them.
“A professor once told me the perfect lesson has yet to be taught. So, you do what you think is best, learn from mistakes and hope the voters don’t make you a one-term mayor.”
Or, as Churchill said: “Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.”
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