The Record sat with New West mayoral candidate, Patrick Johnstone, to get to know candidate’s likes, his top issues and beyond.
What’s your favourite book?
My favourite novel is “Catch 22.” Easily, because it's an absurdist story about government. And I love the non-linear narrative and the way that story wraps itself together in different narratives. So it's a challenging read the first time, but once you get to the rhythm of it, it's so much fun to read.
In non-fiction, Science as a Candle in the Dark. It's Carl Sagan's book about the demon-haunted world and about how we separate reality from non-reality in our modern world.
Does your favourite book choice reflect the political views you have?
I mean, the way I do I've done the work on council for the last eight years is trying to explain what seems arcane or sometimes absurd about local government. So I think that novel really puts it to the extreme how absurd government often seems. So I guess there's a bit of relation to that because I really I believe in local government and I believe that government can do work.
And so trying to explain what appears absurd is something I really value, and put a lot of work into.
What would your first 90 days look like in council, should you be elected?
Our first 90 days is always an interesting, arbitrary number. We have a lot of statutory requirements we have to do in the first 90 days, which is about getting our capital budget and our operational budget prepared for submittals to the province.
But I think the first step is, is reaching out to staff and having those conversations about where we're going over the next term and putting together such a plan with the council team that I'm elected with.
So other than this, I mean, our strategic plan, I think that we have to put together at the beginning of the term has to address what I think are the three biggest issues in the city, which is housing and making sure we have housing variety and housing affordability in the city.
It's about making sure that our capital plan is well supported and funded so we can get the infrastructure we need to get built and making sure that our community energy plan is adopted and is feasible so that we can continue to take action on climate.
What is the one issue you are most passionate about addressing?
You know, what I'm most passionate about is what got me into this work, which is active transportation. It's making sure that our transportation spaces are safe for vulnerable road users. That means pedestrians, that means cyclists, that means people using new mobility. So I'm really passionate about making sure that our community, that New Westminster being this established urban community with a great density, actually serves the needs of vulnerable road users.
Why did you choose Royal City Curling Club as the location for your interview?
I love the Royal City Curling Club.
It is my second home or my third home in New Westminster, after work and home. What I love about curling is that it is a relatively accessible and inexpensive sport. And so you have you have so many different kinds of people who come together to curl at the Royal City Club. We have six-year-olds curling here with little rocks.
We have 90-year-olds curling here with sticks. We have people from all walks of life who come together here and enjoy this sport. It's also a place where you can come out here on a Tuesday night and see almost-brand-new curlers throwing for the first season. You can curl with world champions here at the Royal City Club.
So it's a place and it's a place where I learned about teamwork and I learned about leadership as I was growing up and I was learning how to curl and I was learning how to skip curling teams about how it works together and how a leader has to make sure they are supporting their entire team through whatever endeavour you're on.
It's also about sportsmanship, this sport. It's it's a sport where you shake hands with your opponents at the beginning of the game. You shake hands with your opponents at the end of the game. And there's no referee. So you have to work together as even with your opponents, to make sure that everyone is treating each other respectfully and fairly.
So I think it's a wonderful sport for people to learn about lessons of life.
What do you like to do when you are not working?
What I like to do on a daily basis is ride my bike. I don't get time enough. I do love cycling. I've been a cyclist my entire life. I grew up in a bike shop when I was a kid and I worked in retail for many years in bike shops and sport stores.
So I love all aspects of riding bicycles. I am a really hit-and-miss gardener. It's been a good year for tomatoes, but I'm not very good at I'm not very good at gardening, but I try really hard, and I yeah, I enjoy reading. I enjoyed writing about the city and I enjoy reading about city policies. Actually, I'm a bit of a policy geek that way and I do that for fun.
*Edited for clarity.
