From driving bus to driving the agenda
EDMONTON — “Hey boss,” a security guard in the Alberta legislature yells at Brian Mason. “How many of us do you need for Sunday?”
“I’m not the boss,” Mason insists, wandering the halls in a blue suit (no tie) and a jovial mood. “Rachel’s the boss.”
Mason was the boss of a small NDP caucus for almost 10 years. But in surrendering the leadership last year, he paved the way for Rachel Notley’s improbable majority victory — and is now poised to wield real power for the first time, as one of the government’s most senior MLAs.
He was named Government House Leader on Thursday, and is rumoured to be in line for a senior post at Sunday’s swearing-in of Notley’s new cabinet.
He is pegged as a possible finance minister, but whatever the role, it will be a remarkable moment for the former bus driver.
Shortly after the election that swept the fourthplace party to power with a healthy 54-seat majority, a Twitter user asked: “If Mason becomes Finance Minister, will we have to pay our taxes in exact change?”
He responded: “Yes, but you’ll get a transfer.”
He’s long known for delivering killer one-liners and the best Question Period pranks, but Mason generally now talks with an uncommon discipline, as if he’s put himself on an internal twosecond delay.
It’s one thing to play the government gadfly — to follow around Ralph Klein’s health minister in a bid to destroy plans to privatize health care, as he once did. It’s another thing entirely to govern. He admits it’s a prospect that fills him with excitement — and dread.
On Wednesday, in an empty legislature cafeteria, Mason admitted it had been a trying few weeks: From the elation of an unexpected victory — the party didn’t start to seriously prepare to become government until two weeks before the vote — to a month of delay and cautious decision-making.
Mason, 61, said he didn’t know what role he will play under Notley, who he encouraged to run for leader after he stepped down last year. But he is willing to take a bit of credit for her success. He bears much responsibility for moderating the NDP policy book, stripping out derogatory references to the “tarsands,” and setting the groundwork for an electable NDP government.
“In 2008 we lost several seats and that was quite a blow, so we did some serious soul searching and something one of our staff said at a caucus meeting just struck me. He said: ‘What we’re doing is acting like the B.C. NDP and we really need to start acting like the Saskatchewan NDP or the Manitoba NDP, more pragmatic,” he said.
“There were thousands of people whom we wanted to be voting for us who depend on the oilsands for their livelihood … it would be like the Ontario NDP coming out in favour of shutting down the auto industry. It’s just not on.”
Mason, who came of age in the ’60s, wasn’t always a moderating influence.
At the University of Alberta, he flirted with everything from communism to liberalism and wound up with the NDP. To save money, he boarded at the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, the Tory frat on campus, and became the house’s counterculture mascot.
“They’d say silly things like we have to ban French on cereal boxes to get me going, and that was their afterdinner entertainment,” he said.
One of his roommates was an earnest young law student by the name of Dave Hancock.
“I used to call him a communist, and I think back then he probably was,” Hancock, who served as PC premier after Alison Redford resigned amid scandal last year, said with a chuckle. “I remember him in university being intense and very committed to his causes. We would tease each other … and we wound up on opposite sides of campaigns.”
Hancock went on to earn his law degree, but Mason ran out of money and was unable to finish his arts degree. That’s how he ended up driving a bus.
“The recession hit in the ’80s and I wound up keeping the job and it wound on and on,” said Mason, who grew to be more involved in the union during a contentious era of strikes and layoffs (and who maintains membership in the amalgamated transit union).
After he was temporarily laid off in 1983, he ran for Edmonton city council. He lost, but became president of the Edmonton Voters Association, a municipal party, and then in 1989 decided to run again.
There was one problem: a law that prevented municipal employees from running for office. He filed a charter challenge, but lost — and then smartly used the fuss to his advantage.
“I resigned with a big fanfare and a news conference. I went to hand in my resignation to transit with TV cameras behind me.”
He printed stickers, buttons and signs, now collectors’ items, with the phrase “You know, the bus driver” and slapped them under his name.
He was, of course, elected to Ward 3, then one of the most neglected sections of Edmonton, and was every bit the firebrand. But by time the NDP recruited him as a provincial candidate, 10 years on city council had softened him, he said.
“I appreciate the value of ideology, but I find it can really cloud your judgment, so I try to keep it to a minimum,” he said.
He ran for the seat vacated by former leader Pam Barrett, who quit after a neardeath experience in the dentist’s chair.
He became a well-liked legislator with a sharp tongue and a biting wit; even today, his face stretches in glee at the thought of a good scrap. But he usually retained the knack for keeping the fight above the weeds, and made friends across the aisle.
It may seem a terrible irony to spend so long striving for the party, only to watch the premier’s seat handed to his successor a few months after stepping down. But Mason will certainly reap the rewards, with a senior role in a caucus of rookies.
“So much for a quiet session,” he quipped with a mixture of resignation and delight.