When Mike Hurley walks into the room, you probably won’t notice.
Soon after becoming mayor of Burnaby in late 2018, he asked councillors and city staff to stop standing up when he entered council chambers as if he were a judge entering a courtroom – a longstanding practice upheld by his predecessor, five-term mayor Derek Corrigan.
“I just really don’t see a need for it,” he says of the tradition. “It kind of speaks to me as some kind of elitist … It’s just not who I am.”
The act of listening
And the soft-spoken retired firefighter doesn’t exactly announce himself in other spaces. If you saw him among the other hockey parents at 6 a.m. at 8 Rinks – where the 61-year-old can often be found cheering on his three sons: eight-year-old twins and a 12-year old – you might not guess Hurley has earned himself a spot among Vancouver Magazine’s Power 50.
That’s because the quiet mayor of Burnaby spends far more time listening than speaking.
“I believe that 90 per cent of the art of conversation is the act of listening,” Hurley says.
As he’s lent an ear to the city, Hurley has heard his city needs affordable housing, climate action, better recreation centres and more. He’s tried to respond with action at city hall.
The rookie mayor sat down with the NOW recently to reflect on the past year and look ahead at the one to come.
The mayor's report card
A year ago, he laid out his guarantees, goals and aspirations for 2019. They included forming a housing task force, increasing policing, upgrading city facilities and parks, adding new sidewalks and improving housing affordability.
Asked to give himself a report card a year later, Hurley says he thinks he earned a B+.
Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley says he gives himself a B+ for his first year in office.
— KelvinGawley (@byGawley) December 21, 2019
What do you think he deserves?
He says two things kept him from earning an A or A+: the slow pace of change and a failure to better communicate with the community about some of those changes.
Hurley admits it could take seven years or longer to build the 2,000 units of non-market housing he wants. “Are things moving as fast as I would like? Probably not,” he says.
At a recent five-hour-long public hearing, a parade of fearful renters showed Hurley the city hadn’t kept the public informed of its work. The speakers implored council to pause four Metrotown developments they feared would force them out of their homes – but council had no intention of approving the rezonings before passing a tenant assistance program that many believe will be the most generous in Canada.
“Obviously, that message didn’t get to enough people,” Hurley says.
The city must take “some responsibility” for the lack of understanding – and trust – of what the city has promised, Hurley says.
But Hurley says his time as mayor has “been really positive, for the most part.”
Bringing people together
Coun. Sav Dhaliwal seems to agree. Despite campaigning with his Burnaby Citizens Association slatemate Corrigan, the veteran council member has nothing but praise for Hurley.
He says he was especially impressed by Hurley’s ability to bring together activists, developers and non-profit housing providers – “all those people who have previously been very, very upset with what the city has been doing” – for a housing task force that ultimately produced a consensus report with a new vision for the city.
That success and others in a “very successful year for council” have come due in large part to Hurley’s leadership, Dhaliwal says.
“I find him always out there in the public, listening. Not always dominating conversations; he listens and then takes action on those things,” he says. “Those are really good qualities of a leader.”
The road ahead
Hurley says his priorities will remain the same in 2020, with housing retaining the top spot.
“My goal is to get some of these projects up and running and get them started so we can start making a real difference,” he says.
He hopes that includes making progress on a recently signed memorandum of understanding with BC Housing to build some 1,300 units of affordable housing on seven publicly owned pieces of property (six owned by the city and one by the federal government).
The new year will also bring Burnaby’s climate action plan, which city staff are currently developing after council voted in September to declare a climate emergency and commit to carbon neutrality by 2050.
“I think you’re going to see some pretty radical changes,” including electrifying the city’s vehicle fleet, more stringent energy-efficiency standards for new buildings and better active transportation infrastructure, Hurley says.
Looking further ahead, Hurley says he hopes to remain in the mayor’s chair a while longer.
“I most likely will run for re-election because there's still a lot to get accomplished, and I still think I can bring some leadership to those roles,” he says, when asked about his plans for the next municipal election in 2022.
“I think in all my promises, I did say it would take time to turn this around. It wasn't going to happen overnight.”
