Question: How long have you lived in New Westminster?
Answer: This is such a wonderful community. I feel so proud that it's my home. My husband I moved to Victoria Hill a couple years ago.
Q: Why do you think you are uniquely qualified to represent the riding?
A: The issues that I have heard on the doorstep, the issues that I have met with people about in their living rooms and at coffee parties and coffee shops - like public education, like improving seniors' care, like dealing with traffic and congestion, environmental issues. Those are issues I have worked on my entire life. I have been a lifelong advocate for improving health care, improving seniors' care, public education, advocating for child care. In my career, in the advocacy I have done all my life, I think I have a really strong record of bringing people together from diverse backgrounds, across the spectrum in order to find practical solutions to the issues that affect people's lives. That's really what I think I bring to this and what I want to do if the voters of New Westminster give me the honour of electing me on May the 14th.
Q: What would be your own personal priority as an MLA?
A: Well I have heard a lot of issues - Pattullo Bridge, seniors care, but if there's one issue above all that I've heard of and that I would certainly make my personal priority, it would be getting that high school built. I have heard concerns about public education, about the need to invest in our classrooms but also about getting our schools built, probably more than any other issue.
Q: What accomplishment in your life are you proudest of
A: I have been married for 35 years - to the same man. I have loved and supported my son through a lot of challenges in his life, and he's doing pretty well. In the advocacy work that I have done, I feel really proud of having brought people together to find solutions. There are a number of examples that come to mind. Getting a child-care centre that parents really needed in a community, but also bringing people together around water issues for instance. I helped to create, co-founded, a water coalition, with national and provincial spin-offs to protect Canada's water. It's still a goose bumps moment for me remembering the blue-collar water workers who knew the importance of investing in infrastructure because they knew about the size of pipes, environmentalists who were concerned about conservation and about pollution and so on, and citizen advocates. Bringing those people together in order to be able to advocate at a local level for protecting and conserving our water.
Q: Who has been a role model for you?
A: I have a lot of role models, a lot of people who inspire me. Jack Layton inspired me tremendously. I knew and worked with Jack Layton for many years. I was working on an NDP campaign with his wife Olivia when they were still courting. But I think it was his incredible hope and optimism, and his generosity of spirit ... He was a very special friend of mine. I've been inspired by Dawn Black and Anita Hagen, who have done incredible service to this community. On a day-to-day level what inspires me are those people who just give everything of themselves to make our community a better place - the health-care workers at Queen's Park Care Centre or in the emergency room at Royal Columbian Hospital, under the incredible pressure; the small business people I have met, who put everything on the line to start their new businesses and also to give back in a big way with jobs but also with service to the community; the volunteers and the staff at Seniors Services Society that I work with. I have a lot of heroes, and I meet a lot of them every day. I think the folks here in the campaign office can tell you everyday I come back and say, you know who I talked to and you know what I learned? That's what keeps me going.
To view a video of the interview with Darcy, click here.
