The Optimist sat down with each of the five candidates running in Delta South in Tuesday’s provincial election to gain some insights through one-on-one interviews. The interviews are verbatim, although some have been edited for length. Below is Sandor Gyarmati’s interview with Liberal candidate Ian Paton.
Q: You entered politics in the 2010 Delta by-election. What convinced you to give it a try?
A: I’ve never taken a political science course in my life. I’ve never been a political blogger or political junkie or anything like that. Basically, I was just Ian Paton, doing what I do on my farm and my farm auction business, but I’ve been involved over the years in lots of community stuff, volunteering. So people got to know me through my involvement with the Delta Farmers’ Institute. So when George Hawksworth passed away, I was actually sitting one night in Ladner in a restaurant, or it could have been Speed’s Pub, and the mayor was there with a couple of friends and she called me over and said, “You know, there’s a by-election coming up for one council spot.” And she said, “You should really consider running for council.” I really laughed, I thought it was kind of funny and I never pictured myself really being in politics. But, over a period of two or three weeks, the phone started ringing from other people in the community who had heard Lois (Jackson) talked to me and they started pestering me saying, “Ya, you’d make a good councillor because you’re a common sense guy, you’re from the farming community, your family has been involved over the years in lots of community events.” So, after about three weeks of persuading, they finally talked me into it. Eight of us ran for that one spot and I won by 1,300 votes. I’ve kind of enjoyed this ever since then.
Q: What have you learned about being in politics?
A: You basically learn municipal politics on the run. There’s no guidebook that’s handed to you on how everything works. You get elected as a municipal councillor and you’re not sure where every department is. You have to quickly become familiar with all the different aspects of the municipality that you’re dealing with. Everything from how council meetings run, you get put on committees and have to chair committees, you have to learn some rules of Roberts how to run meetings properly. Then you have to learn all about the different bylaws in Delta and zoning areas. You have to understand how the budgets are handed down and figure out where the money is going to get spent. You just don’t go there and deal with one or two things.”
Q: How has South Delta changed since you were a kid?
A: Obviously things change with the number of people who move in. Things really started to change when the George Massey Tunnel got opened up. When I was a kid in elementary school they were building Highway 99 from the tunnel heading to White Rock. So, of course, that went right though farmland, all through my area in East Delta, so that split a lot of farms in half. Then they decided they were going to build a port and the railway tracks went right in the middle of all the farmland in East Delta, so that was kind of a big shocking change. It was pretty upsetting. When you own a farm that’s 80 acres and all of a sudden the railway line goes right through the middle of your farm, literally your cows graze on one side of the track and you ask , “How do I get my milk cows on the other side of the track for milking time?” Then, of course, it was really upsetting when they expropriated 4,000 acres of farmland, the backup lands. That was really frightening as a kid. I remember there was all these different farmers and friends who lived out that way at Brunswick Point… it was scary. It was, “Oh my god, dad, do you think they’ll be coming for our farm next?” They were slowly working their way from the west to the east expropriating land for future use for port expansion, which never panned out. That’s why they eventually started selling all those farms back to farmers. I remember there was no Highway 17 that ran by Paterson Park for the horse races. From my farm in East Delta there was no stop signs or lights from East Delta all the way to Ladner. And people have no idea now that there were parts of Ladner that were all farms and barns and are now all subdivisions… And you know, where we’re situated in Canada, I’d say they really stuck it to Delta with all these transmission lines and transportation infrastructure.
Q: How do you see South Delta changing once the bridge is built?
A: There’s way too many people, too many arm chair engineers, who say they’re against the bridge who don’t use the Massey Tunnel to any great extent, so they’re the ones who say we don’t need it. Just because a new bridge goes in, it doesn’t mean we’re going to throw away our zoning bylaws and start throwing up new apartment buildings and houses for people to live in. It is what it is. There’s a certain amount of housing available and just because there’s a new bridge it doesn’t mean we’re going to open the flood gates.
Q: What do you think are the odds of LRT coming through Delta anytime soon?
A: Honestly, I think, the odds are probably 10 years out after the bridge gets built. It’s something that I would keep pushing for. I think once the bridge is open, and we see the congestion go way down, they may say, “We don’t necessarily need LRT right at the moment, but it’s being designed into the bridge so that it can be a future possibility.” I’ve always thought that a huge parking lot at the Vancouver Landfill would be a good place for people to park their cars that are coming from South Surrey, White Rock, Tsawwassen. You can park your car there and jump on a SkyTrain and head into Vancouver over the new bridge. It could easily be ground level and then hook in with the system over in Richmond near Oak Street Bridge, then hook in with that line that goes over Cambie.
Q: What do you say about all the other cities being against Delta over the bridge?
A: I’m on a committee at Metro Vancouver for regional planning and agriculture. I simply see everybody pushing for something in their own communities, and so, collectively, you see a lot of mayors who are pretty buddy-buddy, like Coquitlam, Port Moody and Port Coquitlam. These guys are all buddy-buddies and they stand together. The problem is that a lot of these times a lot of these mayors never cross the river. They don’t spend any time in Ladner or Tsawwassen. They are all from the North Shore. They’re from Burnaby. They’re from Vancouver City Council... So, they don’t understand that some of the fastest growing population is south of the Fraser — Surrey, White Rock, Delta. I just think it’s a bit selfish that they feel any TransLink money should be spent in Vancouver, Burnaby or Coquitlam, but not south of the Fraser. Do you ever go through that tunnel in the morning heading into Vancouver? There’s so many people who don’t understand that the trucks and traffic are lined up almost to Westminster Highway. These are huge trucks ... and they’re all trying to get goods through that tunnel in the morning.
