His campaign has been so packed with events and details that Conservative candidate John Weston talked to The Squamish Chief from his cellphone while travelling in his car.
Weston was en route from West Vancouver to Squamish, where he planned to shake hands with supporters attending the FortisBC open house about the compressor station for the pipeline to serve the proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant.
He’s an unabashed supporter of the proposed LNG plant and other projects he says will bring jobs to Squamish. LNG will create 100,000 jobs in B.C., he said.
And he was anxious to greet more supporters in person as the campaign was wrapping up. He said he had already shaken the hands of 1,000 people while knocking on doors, and his team had reached 6,000 people in the West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky riding.
Asked about the major issues, Weston had them outlined. A graduate of Harvard University, a lawyer and an experienced politician who has spent two terms in Ottawa, he knows to be prepared for a media interview.
The people in the riding have four major concerns, Weston says: lower taxes, infrastructure, environment and the economy, and the equality of all Canadians “before one law” – not giving aboriginal law precedence over Canadian law, he explained.
Weston’s concerns also include fitness and obesity in Canada, and the fit 57-year-old was instrumental in creating National Health and Fitness Day and organizing fitness events for others on Parliament Hill.
“I get MPs out to run on a Tuesday and swim on a Thursday,” he said proudly.
He said Green Leader Elizabeth May “comes out to the swim…. She lost weight and looks great.”
Asked what Squamish people might want to know about him, Weston replied, “For Squamish, it’s important that my favourite vehicle is the bicycle.”
He has been working on a national strategy for cycling.
And although Weston has been a backbencher in Parliament, he has managed to bring forward private member’s bills, including ones on abandoned boats, substance abuse and fitness day. He reported that 239 cities in Canada proclaimed National Health and Fitness Day this year after it was introduced.
For Weston, fitness is not just his image; it’s his passion and the way he met his wife. After studying international relations at Harvard and law at Osgoode Hall, he worked in constitutional affairs – ironically under Quebec separatist René Lévesque – then went abroad to work as a lawyer and businessman in Taiwan.
“That’s where I met my wife, Donna,” he said. “I met her running.”
The couple has three teenage children, a daughter and two sons, and is from West Vancouver, where Weston grew up. When he returned from overseas, he worked as a lawyer in the city. He speaks Mandarin, French and English.
“I am not a career politician,” he emphasized. “I guess I look at it as service. My dad was a prisoner of war…. I just learned at a young age that you serve the community you are part of.”
Weston said he has brought groups together to discuss issues in the riding. “I have been pushing fisheries,” he said, noting success in bringing $2 million for Pacific salmon foundations and tourism funding after he created a tourism roundtable.
Weston won his seat the past two elections by large margins, earning approximately 45 per cent of the vote each time, when the Conservatives were more popular. Asked how Prime Minister Stephen Harper is doing on a national level, Weston replied, “The world recognizes Stephen Harper as someone who has led our country and has been paramount in our economic success…. He has been an outstanding leader for Canada.”
But after nine years and thousands of decisions, “any thinking person will disagree with one hundred of those and that’s normal,” he said.
Many of Weston’s election signs throughout the riding have been defaced. He said he caught one of the vandals near Sechelt who had drawn a moustache on his face on the sign.
“His explanation was that he was angry, angry at Stephen Harper, angry at Justin Trudeau and angry at me,” he said. “He apologized profusely… he then, to his credit, apologized on my answering machine.”
Weston recently joined other Conservatives in announcing new initiatives in the party platform, including one dealing with derelict boats. He noted people in Squamish are concerned about boats left to rust and sink.
It’s just one of the ways he said he has made a difference.
“For Squamish, I have been able to bring tens of millions of dollars in investment by working with the community,” said Weston. “I went to bat on behalf of our community.”
