Veteran councillor calls it quits
News
Posted By Hamish Maclean
Posted 1 month ago
By Hamish MacLean
Canmore Leader
After over 10 years of service, Coun. André Gareau has decided he will not be seeking re-election when Canmore goes to the polls Oct. 18. He is stepping aside to take a rest, and opening up a seat for someone with fresh ideas to have the opportunity to participate in municipal politics.
Gareau said he'd like to travel, take more time for his hobbies — music and astronomy— "but mostly just have a chance to enjoy the environment that we're in.
"The dream was always to move to Canmore and work part time to allow for more time for being outside," he said.
"Hopefully I've still got some good years of boarding."
Gareau spent some of his last term as a Canmore councillor voting with his "right-wing." The 61-year-old veteran, well known for his stance on green issues, broke his arm snowboarding late last year and sported a purple cast on his left arm at council meetings.
Gareau came to politics from a diversity of backgrounds. He started off as a psychology researcher and sometime teacher, but after 10 years in psychology he moved into law and legal research.
His original intent he said was to continue that work when he arrived in Canmore, but he found that — without today's technology — the logistics, or the back and forth of paperwork, made the work impractical.
Gareau took on a number of "odd jobs" instead, including canoe guiding, picture framing for a friend and a short stint as a Town census taker, which he said helped him to gain a real understanding of the make-up of, at least parts of, Canmore.
But — always a big fan of national parks — he fell mostly into work in information services for Banff National Park.
"I joke that a change is as good as a rest, so whenever you get a little tired of municipal politics, you have to deal with a lot of federal parks politics," he said. "And diplomacy is required on both levels. It's always a nice change to deal with completely different issues — and occasionally they overlap.
"The major reason why I got into politics was that I really wanted to make sure that the 'green issues' in terms of wildlife corridors, habitat and parks were protected," he said.
Gareau had served on a number of committees before being elected in 2000: the old parks advisory committee, the Environmental Advisory Review Committee, and a waste advisory committee — when the Town brought in the now standard bear-proof garbage bins.
In 1998, Gareau campaigned on the issue of bear proof bins, which he noted was a contentious issue then though bears were being killed in town after becoming habituated to garbage as a food source.
"Although the move had wide support from an environmental point of view, it was actually controversial for people who thought they (bear-proof bins) were unsightly, or they might be noisy and smelly and so on," he said.
And though he did not gain a seat on council after his first campaign in 1998, he was pleased when one of his major issues did gain public acceptance and Canmore moved to the bear bins the following year.
Gareau was a member of the executive of the Bow Corridor Organization for Responsible Development (BowCORD). BowCORD is a local environmental group formed in the early 1990s at the time the Three Sisters development was poised to take off.
Wildlife habitat, trails, and wildlife corridors were big issues before he got elected to public office.
Gareau said that the biggest issue over his tenure was the safeguarding of parks lands — wildlife corridors.
He said that one of the things that he was happiest to have accomplished — along with other councillors and members of the community — was the protection of Quarry Lake.
Quarry Lake had been proposed, Gareau recalled, as a developed area. Three Sisters had been offered the Quarry Lake area by the province in compensation for their not being able to develop Wind Valley, which was once proposed to be a part of the Three Sisters development. (Gareau called the protection of Wind Valley one of the major gains for the Bow Valley "of the century.")
The Town also moved to protect the Spray Valley and other green areas surrounding Canmore during his time as a councillor.
"The surroundings of Canmore were kept as park land, or wilderness, or wildlife refuges, basically, and within Canmore, we did manage to secure, on both sides of the valley adequate wildlife corridors."
Some wildlife corridors were though, he said, accepted at a time when the science was not as up-to-date as it is now.
"It's unfortunate that the science of wildlife corridors came a bit late for us," he added.
But it's not missed opportunities or regrets that Gareau focuses on when reflecting on his decade — a length of time that seems to have snuck up on him — as a councillor.
He said he enjoyed the work and will miss working with colleagues to "produce some reasonable policies."
"It took five or six years of argument by myself and some other councillors to get a smoke-free workplace policy for Canmore."
And Canmore was ahead of the province in banning smoking from restaurants and other public buildings.
Tourist homes — or commercial type uses of homes in residential areas — was another issue that Gareau recalled as a challenging compromise during his time.
Another major success for the Town during Gareau's time was the Town's establishment of perpetually affordable housing (PAH).
"I guess one of my regrets was that not enough land in town was set aside for that," Gareau said. "We did get some land set aside for PAH, and we still have some land for it that we haven't used yet, but it would have been nice to have even more land designated for PAH from the early days when land was more affordable."
Gareau gained a seat on the council in an April 2000 by-election after the 1998 election loss. Gareau then went on to be reelected three times after that in 2001, 2004, and 2007.
For incoming councillors he said that the time commitment is a big part of the job, that a 20-hour work week is just an average and that a flexible schedule is a must.
"People who try to keep a full-time job, their family or their leisure will suffer severely, or their work will suffer," he said. "There have been several councillors who, I'm sure, would have liked to keep working as councillors, but after a term or even a half a term have found it too much.
"Which is unfortunate because it means that a number of people, will not be prohibited from doing it, but will find it very difficult."
The time taken to research the issues as they come forward, including talking to affected residents and those members of the Town's administration who are in touch with the issue is significant — and it's important to approach everything with fresh eyes, he said. He gained an appreciation of the diversity of views held in town over his tenure.
"You'd hear from all sides, definitely — you tend to hear more from people who were unhappy about something than who were happy about something, but that's just part of the job," he said.
Gareau said aside from the long days of meetings, he'd miss the continual phone calls about problems that seem insoluble the least, for example, Canmore's rabbit population, he said. Gareau said he fielded a number of calls on the issue.
"From both sides: from those who just love them and those who can't stand them," Gareau said.
Born in Bonnyville, Alta., Gareau came to town in 1994. He and his wife wanted to be closer to the mountains. And over the years he has seen a number of changes to the town he calls home. And Gareau has put in the time to give him a qualified "local" status.
"It (his 16 years here) makes me a local in the sense that I was here when everyone got their mail at the post office and you would run into absolutely everyone in town a few times a year," he said. "Those are what I call the 'young old-timers' those that remember those days. The real old-timers, of course, were here before the mines closed."
Gareau said there are a couple of simple questions new candidates should ask themselves when preparing to take a run at a seat on council.
"Are you prepared to give up 20 hours a week of your time for municipal politics?'" he said. "And where are you willing to cut back in your schedule whether it's time with your family, leisure time or work.
"It's a sobering thought when you realize that something has to give."
But also candidates should ask themselves what their vision of an achievable, desirable Canmore would be: "What is it about Canmore that you'd like to either preserve or change?"
And though Gareau sees a lot more work to be done he's happy to walk away at this point.
"I think as long as we keep the attitude of protecting our community and the environment, then the rest will take care of itself," he said. "Although there will be brushfires constantly."
hamish@
canmoreleader.com
