Housing, climate, youth top of mind for New West councillor

Editor's note: New West Anchor is getting to know the six councillors and the new mayor elected to City Hall. We're running a series of pieces on them in our newsletters—be sure to take a look at our pieces on Mayor Patrick Johnstone and Couns. Paul Minhas, Daniel Fontaine, Nadine Nakagawa, and Tasha Henderson. Stay tuned for our piece on Jaimie McEvoy.

For Coun. Ruby Campbell, running in October's municipal election all came down to timing.

"It's not just about the campaign, it's all about the work I'd done, years and years before that," says Campbell, who attributes the win to a combination of serving the community, while finding support from the people around her. "A lot of good people who have been championing me and helping me. So, at some point I just had to say, 'It is what it is.'"

"It is what it is" was the sentiment she carried with her in the weeks leading up to last month's vote. The Sapperton resident has an impressive resume of community involvement. She's currently the director of development for the faculty of arts and social sciences at Simon Fraser University, has served as the fundraising manager of the BC Lung Association, and has also been the volunteer coordinator for the City of New Westminster.

But on the night of the vote, it was all about being there for her family—especially for her daughter.

"I actually ended up going for dinner to L'onore with my daughter and my husband. Of course, I was nervous—you'd be silly not to—but it was more important for me to be with my family, and to make sure that she was really well-supported," explains Campbell, who added that if she'd lost, she wanted to be the first person to tell her daughter that it was OK. "We'd continue to move on as a family, and we'd had an awesome opportunity to contribute to the community."

They came home from dinner just in time to begin to catch the results trickling in, and once the family set up all the electronic devices to catch up on what was happening, she was shocked.

"They were starting to call it for me earlier on, and I was speechless ... my mom kept texting me, saying, 'Do you know?' And I was like, 'Mom, I don't know yet!'"

Campbell drew the most votes during the election, and was the only person to break the 8,000 mark in votes. Coun. Jaimie McEvoy was the candidate with the second-highest number of votes at 7,927, based on the official final numbers.

Campbell says running for council seemed like a natural step, as getting involved in her community has been a way for her to grow personally, while being able to give back. The sentiment hit her especially hard during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Eventually, people started having conversations with her about running.

"I'd been approached by many good people, and I said, 'You know what? I think I'm ready. I'm ready to give in a way that might be challenging for me,'" explains Campbell, who noted she's aware of the sometimes negative comments that can come a councillor's way. "I think for me, the calling to help for the greater—it sounds so cheesy!—but the calling to help for the greater good, I was ready for that."

While she's ready to work on any topic that comes her way, there are some that she has at the top of her list—including housing. "My goodness, we need to figure that out and we need to make some decisions that work well for all individuals, whether you're in a vulnerable situation, whether you're middle-income—we need to make that work. And the climate crisis. Those are probably the two strongest issues for me that I want to champion."

She's also looking to continue to work on connecting with the community, something that's spilled over from door knocking during the campaign.

"I think the challenging part is helping individuals [understand] ... why voting and being involved in that process is so important," she says, adding that there were some people who would meet her at the door and ask why they should care to vote. "For me, that was challenging because we have to make sure that people feel they belong, that we empower them to have a say, but I recognize people are busy. They're raising families, they're trying to make their jobs work, they're trying to find housing. Not everyone has that time and that luxury to figure out who they want to vote for."

Campbell is hoping to be able to connect with as many people as she can, including renters and those who live in multi-family homes. "I think 45% of our population are renters, and a large number of our population live in multi-family units." Campbell goes on to say that there needs to be a better way to engage that population, adding that it's not the only demographic that needs to be engaged.

"This was the first year that we could actually door knock in multi-family units, so we did ... and it was so funny—for some people it was so jarring for them because they don't usually have somebody [knocking on their door] ... I think we also need to reach out to all the organizations in our communities that are involved with families, diverse community groups. And ask them what works? What doesn't work?'"

She's also hoping to create better connections with the younger people in the community.

"I think we need to make sure our youth are well-supported," says Campbell, and that's regardless of the activity they're interested in, whether it's the arts or sports. "I think we also need to look at the work the city committees have been doing and figure out what the priorities are. There's lots of amazing, good work already happening in those committees, and we need to look at what the priorities are as well."