Former city councillor, broadcaster remembered
Council colleagues say Barrie Clark, who died late last week at age 86, always spoke his mind
Shortly after he was re-elected as a Kelowna city councillor in 2002, Barrie Clark blasted the 75 per cent of voters who hadn’t bothered to cast a ballot.
“They are totally irresponsible, lazy and apathetic,” Clark thundered at a council meeting, deploying the former broadcaster’s baritone voice he’d use to mesmerize, entertain and infuriate during a long and successful career in radio.
Insulting the people you represent in such a strident way might seem an odd choice for a politician.
But it was characteristic of the theatrically gruff and plain-speaking approach Clark showed during his nine years on city council, from 1999 to 2008.
Clark, who died late last week at age 86, is being remembered by his former council colleagues as a somewhat blustery, but always engaged, local politician who constantly resisted critics’ attempts to characterize him as part of the old-boy network by touting some remarkably progressive and forwardthinking views.
“Barrie always spoke his mind and was never afraid to be controversial,” former mayor Walter Gray said Wednesday. “And that voice! It always seemed like he was speaking into an open mic, even if you were just having a casual conversation.”
“When Barrie spoke, everyone listened,” said Al Horning, a former city councillor. “If he had an opinion, and he did on everything, he’d give it to you. And I personally found that they were usually very sensible opinions.”
Despite the occasional bombast, Clark was “a gentleman when interacting with his colleagues and the public,” said MLA Norm Letnick, who also served on council with Clark.
And former Conservative MP Ron Cannan, who was on council with Clark from 1999 to 2005, said: “Barrie brought a great wealth of knowledge and experience to the council table. He was a very proud father, supportive husband and caregiver to his wife, Inge, who predeceased him.”
Clark graduated from Kelowna Secondary School, working at the old CKOV radio station while still a teenager in the late 1940s. He put himself through university in Vancouver while working in radio part time.
His broadcasting career, which included stops in Ontario and Britain, was long focused in B.C. In the 1960s, he hosted a dance party TV show for teenagers in Vancouver, then began extended runs through the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s as a popular radio talk show host, both in Vancouver and Kelowna.
Clark was also a Liberal MLA and the province’s rentalsman, in charge of an office that tried to resolve landlord-tenant disputes.
Through his nine years on city council, Clark often warned against the municipality being too profligate with the public purse, but he also supported the generous funding of arts organizations as being “essential” to Kelowna’s well-being.
He criticized urban sprawl, casting the lone vote against a 1,000-home development in McKinley Landing after describing it as the worst case of development “leapfrogging” he’d ever seen.
He also supported a controversial downtown housing complex for alcoholics and drug users, and advocated more than a decade ago for a guaranteed annual income, an idea that’s beginning to gain traction among policy-makers.
When he chose not to run for re-election in 2008, Clark, in his 70s at the time, said he hoped someone much younger than him would take his seat.
“My message is, ‘Come on, young people, get involved,” he said in an interview. “Don’t leave things to the old farts.”