In the week since his election to the B.C. legislature, Nicholas Simons' cell phone has been ringing steadily with calls from constituents.
"It's everything from mining exploration to food in the hospitals, the community forest and medical coverage for glasses," Simons says as he ends his latest call and sits down at his kitchen table for an interview. "People have concerns about the things that seem most important to them. That's my job. I'm a social worker anyhow."
Two years ago, Simons had no political aspirations. He had a busy job at the Sechelt Nation, where he had served as director of health and human services for seven years, and later as executive director of child and family services.
He knew NDP leader Carole James professionally and admired her, so he went to listen when she spoke at the Roberts Creek Community Hall. When he attended his second NDP function, a speech by Burnaby MP Svend Robinson at the Legion, a member of the local party executive asked him to consider running as an NDP candidate.
"Do I have to join the party?" Simons responded.
He did join the NDP in 2003 and ran against incumbent John Reynolds in the 2004 federal election. In a riding that is dominated by Conservative and Liberal voters in West Vancouver, Simons surprised many people with his strong showing. He took 22 per cent in that election, placing first in Powell River and second on the lower Sunshine Coast, where he was just 213 votes behind Reynolds.
"When you've got very little to lose and an opportunity to speak about issues you're passionate about, it ended up being an amazing experience," he says.
Simons built on that federal campaign for the provincial race in 2005. At the age of 40, he became the MLA for the Powell River-Sunshine Coast riding, winning with 43 per cent of the vote.
For Simons, the moral of his success story is that politics truly is open to "regular folk."
"I went from a non-partisan to a politician," he says. "If you feel like you're able to speak in public about issues you're passionate about, politics is accessible."
Simons lives near Gibsons with his partner, Scott Scobbie, in a rustic house with a pen full of chickens in the yard. Simons likes to practice his cello on the shady back deck overhanging a ravine. The downstairs is one big room, part country kitchen and part studio, with half-finished renovations that have been postponed repeatedly during 18 months of non-stop campaigning.
"Scott made this," Simons remarks as he pours tea from an enormous teapot of unglazed red clay. "He's a ceramic artist with a philosophy degree. He's a country singer, an Emily Carr grad and a horticulturist."
The fact that Simons is homosexual was a non-issue during both the provincial and federal election campaigns. A student raised the question "in the most respectful way" at one all-candidates meeting, and Simons responded with a discussion of unity in diversity. "I've never met anybody who's overtly homophobic," he says. "They have more problems with the fact that I'm a Montreal Canadiens fan. One guy asked if I was gay and wanted to know what I thought about gay marriage. I told him I have two brothers and three sisters who are straight, and I have nothing against them."
Simons grew up in Montreal as part of a musical family; his father and three of his siblings are or were professional musicians, and Simons could have chosen that same path as a cellist.
"I realized early, to be a professional musician you had to make it the central part of your life, practice every day, just like a top-level athlete," he says. "I kept it up, but I never went the extra distance."
He has played with a variety of orchestras and continues to teach and to perform regularly; his next concert will be in Powell River in July.
"I'm not going to give up my cello. You've got to have balance, I think, in life," he says. "It really makes you focus. It's a form of meditation, in a way."
Simons' father was a German Jew whose family emigrated to Canada just before WWII.
The family joke, according to Simons, is that "he emigrated to Canada because the U.S. Embassy was closed for lunch."
Perhaps because of that family history, Simons says, his father tried to protect his children from hearing about violence.
"He would turn the radio down every time there was a violent crime being reported," remembers Simons. "I think that was what made me interested in crime."
Simons got his Bachelor's degree at the University of Ottawa, sailed across the Atlantic Ocean with a friend's father, moved to Yellowknife to work in crime prevention and came to Vancouver to pursue a master's degree in criminology at Simon Fraser University. He came to the Sunshine Coast in 1989, got a temporary job at the Ministry of Social Services and "found out what social work was about."
"What I saw immediately in social work was, you get to find solutions for families that are in crisis. There's just a need for it," he says. "It's probably the hardest job. It's really complicated, all grey areas with no black and white, just like criminology We like to categorize people, but it doesn't really work."
In politics as well, Simons doesn't see issues as black and white.
"Being in opposition implies we're supposed to oppose everything," he says, but he would prefer to seek consensus where possible.
"I see my role in committees and as a spokesperson for the communities I serve. My job is to point out faults and where our communities would benefit from change," he says. "I'm just as disappointed in polarized politics as anyone else."
