You probably had no idea who Mike Hurley was a year ago.
He was a firefighter approaching retirement and a union leader with a relatively low public profile.
Back then, you almost definitely knew who Derek Corrigan was – and likely had an opinion one way or the other about his long reign as the mayor of Burnaby.
What a difference a year makes.
Hurley was sworn in to the city’s top job on Nov. 5 after emerging victorious from a hard-fought election that saw him topple the longtime incumbent with a strong party machine behind him.
The political newcomer not only beat Corrigan by a comfortable margin – 26,260 to 20,333 – he received the most votes at all of the city’s 34 voting places.
So how did Hurley rise from relative obscurity to take over the mayor’s chair?
From the start, it was clear one issue was going to dominate the Oct. 20 municipal election more than any other: housing. At his official campaign launch on June 26, Hurley hammered Corrigan and presented an optimistic plan for Burnaby’s future.
“I’ve always answered the call to serve the city, and now I want to work with all of you to build a better Burnaby,” Hurley said at the time.
If elected, he promised to strike a housing task force with a six-month mandate to find solutions to the city’s housing woes. He also promised to streamline the permitting process for new developments and, later in the campaign, committed to a moratorium on rezoning in Metrotown until a plan to better accommodate displaced tenants was in place.
Hurley took aim at Corrigan’s refusal to allow permanent homeless shelters in the city. The candidate recounted heartbreaking stories from his firefighting days of discovering people nearly frozen to the ground in a city without such facilities.
Hurley also leaned on his first-responder background in criticizing Corrigan’s council for freezing hiring at the Burnaby RCMP, which led to its bike patrol squad being cancelled. That cancellation was reversed when council approved new hires in July.
From Day 1, it was clear there was no love lost between the two men.
After the New Westminster and District Labour Council voted to endorse Hurley, Corrigan accused him of stacking the meeting “with firefighters from all over the region.”
Hurley flatly denied the accusation, telling the NOW: “It’s the same tired old messaging from Corrigan – that it’s always someone else’s fault and never his.”
Corrigan maintained throughout the campaign that Hurley was not interested in serving the people of Burnaby but rather wanted to settle a grudge over a nasty labour dispute between the city and the local firefighters’ union.
Hurley, of course, denied this and said he was committed to representing all citizens – not just his friends in the fire department.
Hurley presented a plan for better recreation centres and transportation, but the election season rarely went a minute before returning to the subject of housing – particularly the so-called demovictions in Metrotown that saw hundreds of rental units lost and, according to some activists, thousands of low- to moderate-income people displaced on Corrigan’s watch.
The issue came up again and again as the campaign rumbled along. It was hard to tell whether Hurley’s message of “Time for change” was sticking or Corrigan’s “Trusted leadership” slogan would win the day.
But a poll in early October showed the two neck and neck, and a second two weeks later gave Hurley a healthy lead. Some questioned the accuracy of the survey, but it held true.
Now, less than two months into his new job, Hurley has created his housing task force (set to begin meeting in January), created four warming centres for homeless people and has advanced plans to study replacing or upgrading four recreation centres.
While he has made progress on these key election promises, 2019 will be a big test for the new mayor. He was swept into office on a promise of change, and Burnaby will be watching closely to see if he can deliver.
