From representing a town of 5,000 to a riding the size of Poland: NDP MP Bachrach settles into job

The Hill Times, Beatrice Paez

This article was originally published at https://www.hilltimes.com/2019/12/12/from-representing-a-town-of-5000-to-a-riding-the-size-of-poland-ndp-mp-bachrach-settles-into-job/228324.

The job of representing Skeena-Bulkley Valley, a far-flung northern B.C. riding, involves hitting the road regularly to connect with as many of its more than 89,000 residents, including the Haida First Nation. It's one of the adjustments the first-time MP is bracing for after serving as mayor of Smithers, B.C., for the past eight years.

Mr. Bachrach said in an interview with The Hill Times that he has gone from representing a town of 5,000 people, where "I can ride my bicycle around the community in about 20 minutes"-if he pedals hard-to representing a riding that "takes four days to drive from one end to another."

The Hill Times interviewed Mr. Bachrach Dec. 3, just as he was settling into his new digs in the Confederation Building, a spacious two-room office with a courtyard view. Few personal touches, save for some framed photographs of his wife and two teenage daughters lining the shelves of his office, were already on display.

In the months leading up to the October vote, he tried to visit as many remote communities as he could, including taking a trip by cable ferry to Usk, a hamlet of 19 people.

Mr. Bachrach knows first-hand that people in small communities can feel isolated from the larger country.

The rookie MP was born and raised in Dunster, a tiny farming community in northern B.C., where, growing up, he said, there was one general store, a community centre, and a two-room elementary school. Mr. Bachrach said his parents instilled in him a sense of civic responsibility that later led him to pursue elected office. "My family taught me at an early age that we had a responsibility to give back more than we expect in return," he said.

The former mayor beat out the Conservatives' contender by 7.5 percentage points, winning 41 per cent of the vote and defending the NDP's hold on the riding. Mr. Bachrach succeeded Nathan Cullen, one of the more prominent voices of the NDP, who chose not to run after 15 years in office. It's not lost on Mr. Bachrach that he has big shoes to fill in succeeding Mr. Cullen.

Though he is intent on bringing his own style of politics, Mr. Bachrach said his predecessor's approach to constituents is one he intends to carry forward.

"The approach he brought to [the job] was to show up, which, in a huge riding like Skeena-Bulkley Valley, is important to people, especially in smaller communities," Mr. Bachrach said. "They want to feel like they have a relationship with their Member of Parliament."

Mr. Cullen has been a mentor to him, he said, in offering travel survival tips for what can be a taxing schedule that involves a lot of red-eye flights between Ottawa and Smithers. "We have the longest commute from B.C. to Ottawa. There are some tricks and strategies you can employ to minimize the impact," he said. "Like, don't book early-morning meetings the morning you take a red eye."

With encouragement from his peers, he decided to run for the party's contested nomination after Mr. Cullen's decision to retire. He won the nomination in May.

While much of Mr. Bachrach's career has been steeped in politics-before serving as mayor, he was on the town council of Telkwa, a village about 15 kilometres from Smithers-he hasn't always been a card-carrying NDP member. "Working in local government, especially in a small community, it's a much less partisan, political environment," Mr. Bachrach said. "I always felt, as mayor, I shouldn't be formally aligned with any parties. ... That's going to be one of the adjustments of this new positions."

The NDP itself is also adjusting to the new reality of being the fourth-place party, with a caucus of 24 MPs, after having been edged out of third by a resurgent Bloc Québécois. (The Bloc now has an eight-seat advantage over the NDP.)

"For returning MPs, the change is more noticeable," Mr. Bachrach said.

Where some NDP MPs are doubling up on critic assignments, Mr. Bachrach will be able to focus heavily on the infrastructure file as the party's critic. It's a portfolio that Mr. Bachrach had his eye on, and one where he can draw on his connections as mayor.

"[The file] really looks at working with local government, which is responsible for building the lion's share of public infrastructure that Canadians rely on," he added. One of his top priorities in the role is to ensure that smaller, northern communities aren't "left out" from the government's infrastructure spending drives.

Climate change is also top of mind for his constituents, many of whom have witnessed its effects first-hand. "Skeena-Bulkley Valley is on the front lines of the impacts of a changing climate. We've seen the devastating wildfire season in the summer. This past season, we saw one of the lowest returns of the sockeye salmon in many decades," Mr. Bachrach said. "All of those things show we need to be taking concerted action, to make the communities more resilient."

When asked if the government's pledge to get Canada on the path to carbon neutrality by 2050 means passing on the development of future fossil-fuel projects, Mr. Bachrach deflected. "It's a conversation we need to be having. We need to be transparent and accountable to the people," he said. "[Infrastructure] is a very important part of the conversation. We need to be making sure that we're making those investments in the context of a low-carbon future."