Ken Melamed grew up in the streets of Philadelphia.
As children, Melamed and his younger brother, Rob, transformed paved lanes into football fields, sandlots into baseball stadiums and driveways crowned with garbage cans into basketball courts.
“We were all about the good old American sports,” the Green Party federal candidate for the West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country reminisces.
Melamed’s father, Andy, loved cities. He was an urban planner. But as the U.S. started shipping troops and helicopters to Vietnam, his passion for Philadelphia soured. The Second World War veteran was too old to be drafted and his sons too young. What the pacifist objected to was his taxes being put toward a war that ultimately killed an estimated 58,220 U.S. and 254,256 South Vietnam soldiers.
In 1966, the Melameds packed their bags and headed to Montreal.
“At the time I was 13 years old. I didn’t really think about the lesson behind my father’s decision. In many ways my brother, sister and I just thought it was a big adventure,” Melamed recalls, adding his father’s message about standing by one’s conviction is not lost on him today.
Melamed spent eight years in Montreal, the UNESCO City of Design, completed high school there and traded in his pigskin for a pair of hockey skates. One day a friend took him skiing, an outing that would change the course of Melamed’s life.
“I loved the speed. I just loved the adrenaline,” he says.
As a young adult, Melamed and his friends dreamed of the big powder in Canada’s Rockies. So in 1973 he took the train to Jasper, where he got a job at a pancake house and began his life as a “ski bum.”
By early April, the chairlifts in Jasper had come to a halt marking the end of the ski season. Melamed and his friends heard rumours of an undiscovered ski town called Whistler, where lifts were running for at least another month.
Jammed in a Volkswagen van, they made their way into British Columbia. Melamed got a job at a local bar before switching to a position as a ski lift attendant, a job that came with the added bonus of a $1 meal plan and affordable accommodation.
Two years later, Melamed was on the ski patrol in Whistler each winter and ran his own stonemasonry business each summer. In 1996, his father’s shared love for politics seeped into his life. The now family man – he is married with two sons – was elected to municipal council. Melamed served as a councillor for nine years before taking the head spot at the table and becoming Whistler’s mayor in 2005. He wore the chain of office from 2005 until 2011 and was at the helm for the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympics Games.
At first Melamed admits he opposed the Olympics, voting against what he called an “unconditional bid.”
“I really felt that we were being pushed into it. Whistler was the smallest player.”
The Olympics represented a big challenge and ultimately one of Melamed’s proudest moments. Before the bid was announced, he helped create the multi-party agreement that stakeholders signed ensuring financial commitments and responsibilities. Melamed negotiated financial tools Whistler required to host the Games, initiated a long-term financial plan and ensured affordable housing, he says.
“I literally changed the way the Olympics engage. It was groundbreaking and now stands as best practice,” Melamed says, noting other Olympic hosts have followed Whistler’s lead. “I protected Whistler financially and made the 2010 Olympics the most ecologically sustainable Games ever.”
In front of athletes from 82 nations, Melamed stood on stage in the heart of Whistler with the 2010 Winter Olympics chairman of the coordination commission, Rene Fasel, and Whistler’s World Cup downhill champion Rob Boyd. It marked the start of five years of hard work, Melamed says. The world was watching.
“There was so much anticipation around that moment.”
Melamed now wants to bring the lessons he’s learned about environmental and financial sustainability to Ottawa. This year he won the Green Party nomination to run for election. Elizabeth May’s team is a natural fit for him, he says. Melamed says he wanted to join the political push to move the country toward a balanced approach, dealing with social justice, a sustainable economy and the environment on a more equal playing field. The economy is a whole-owned subsidiary of the environment, he adds.
“I got into local politics because of concern regarding the environment. As mayor I was always concerned about sustainability,” he says. “I left the mayor’s office feeling like there was more work to do.”
