You won’t see Richard Ireland on the campaign trail. Even though, for the first time in two decades, Ireland is facing a serious threat to his six-term run as Jasper’s only mayor, the incumbent is not canvassing for residents’ votes, handing out fliers nor booking any advertising spots.
Other than to point to the last 19 months of recorded council meetings and agreeing to interviews in local media, Ireland said he is choosing to let his service do the talking.
“I’ve always been uncomfortable trying to sell myself,” Ireland explained. “I love the job but I don’t like that brazen political aspect to [campaigning].”
This is Ireland’s values-based approach, one based on principles of humanity, humility and honour, he said at the October 4 online Mayoral forum. Fostering a culture of governance, rather than politics, Ireland said, is a way to ensure all residents, not just a certain segment or sector, are being served by its elected officials.
“I find often politics gets in the way,” he said. “I don’t think people would choose to have our local government factionalized.”
That’s a distinctly different way of doing business than where Ireland spends his non-council work hours. As a defence lawyer, where courtroom outcomes are, in the best of cases, expressed in a winner-loser result, Ireland says his collaborative approach at council has been precisely because his chosen profession is decidedly adversarial.
“If you can remove yourself from that adversarial system and really focus on collaboration and consensus then you can build winners on all sides,” he said. “There are other things that are warning signs to me, and a reason why I’m not inclined to those sorts of tactics and attitudes in the governance world.”
Those warning signs manifested in June during a critical discussion on how council would split the commercial/residential tax ratio. Ireland said he would have preferred to have a discussion of what an equitable tax rate might be, but instead the item was presented as a request for a tax reduction for one group, to be offset by a tax increase to another group (the increase to residential ratepayers was passed, with Ireland and two other councillors opposed).
“I think that was put forward as a sectoral issue, which made for a difficult pronouncement to the community generally, one that I wasn’t prepared to make,” he said.
What Ireland is prepared to make is a promise to apply himself diligently and to do so honestly and openly. But voters looking to the mayoral candidates to articulate their hopes and dreams for Jasper’s future—what projects they want to bring to fruition, for example—could be forgiven for not having a clear picture of Ireland’s vision. That’s because he’s driven by the intangibles of governance, he said.
“You can have a vision for something like a skatepark or a bicycle skills park, and I think those things will be wonderful,” he said. “But my role is to figure out a way to support those who have those specific visions. My goal is to get the community governed in a way where we collectively understand what we can achieve together.”
Coming to a collective understanding around the table was made more difficult this past term when, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, council was suddenly forced to meet online via Zoom. But although it’s harder to get a read of the room, distractions are more readily available and there is a significant liability in not having administrative staff in council’s field of view, Ireland said there are more positives to online meeting than he initially expected. The main benefit, he said, is that more of the public are watching their elected representatives in action.
“I think that has to be a better thing,” he said.
Voters who do watch Ireland “in action,” might notice a reserved, perhaps even detached style, a leader who doesn’t go out of his way to make light, glad-hand or kibitz, one who shuns social media completely and one whose passions about the role aren’t always obvious. But what attracts Ireland most to the role of mayor, he said, is in fact the process. Consensus-developing, discussion-generating, fact-finding, the facilitation of idea-sharing and thought-collecting—all of which takes place before an issue ever comes up to vote—is gratifying to him. When consensus can be developed on an issue or process that initially wasn’t agreed upon, such as when council recently passed speed limit reductions, for example, Ireland makes no bones about feeling satisfaction from playing a role in it.
“I like to see healthy discussion leading to positive results,” he said.
That healthy discussion isn’t possible, however, if council hasn’t studied up on the material at issue. Ireland says his preparation routine is to read council’s agenda package when it comes out on Friday afternoon, then “perhaps sadly, spend most of my weekend runs thinking about council,” then on Monday evening peruse the document more carefully, crafting questions for staff, concerning himself with procedure, considering what the motions might look like and generally getting to a point where he’s comfortable facilitating discussion.
“There’s an awful lot of work,” he admits.
But after decades of preparing for council meetings, plus all of the extra duties involved—representing the community as its chief spokesperson, liaising with other municipal leaders, lobbying other levels of government—Ireland says he’s still interested in the work. He believes there is a fresh opportunity on the horizon to readdress the elimination of land rent and to transfer the jurisdiction of land use and planning from Parks Canada to the municipality. Mostly, however, Ireland wants to continue to help foster a culture of unified governance. Experience and attitude matter, he said.
“It seems to me the world right now is accepting that inclusion is a necessary aspect of everything and I hope that I have been an inclusive leader all these years.”
Bob Covey// bob@thejasperlocal.com
