Ex-BC premier Glen Clark talks Jimmy Pattison, conservative politics, and Donald Trump in “Below the Radar” interview

Fans of politics—provincial, federal, and American—will find plenty fascinating in a new Below the Radar interview with former BC premier Glen Clark. Hosted by Am Johal for SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement, the segment covers everything from Clark’s rise and eventual exit from the NDP, to his admiration for controversial Social Credit premier Bill Vander Zalm, to his former post-politics career working for Vancouver business magnate Jimmy Pattison.

Highlights—and there plenty of them—include Clark revealing that British Columbians were less than thrilled when he was hired by Pattison, even though the position wasn’t exactly a high-profile one.

When news surfaced that Clark has been named the branch manager of the 10-employee Pattison-owned Electric Sign Company, that sparked a backlash in which people began angrily leaving the Save On Foods loyalty program.

Pattison also owns the grocery chain, and, driving home the importance of listening to the people you serve, whether it's in business or government, he began making phone calls.

“Well, yeah, 400 people resigned, as I recall, from Save On Foods loyalty cards—400 people, because they’re so angry at Jimmy hiring me, even in a junior role,” Clark says in the interview. “And Jimmy phoned them all. And he phoned, he did that, you know, I don’t know if any of your listeners ever canvass or anything else. But 400 people’s a lot of people to call; you know, call 10 people, that’s a lot of people. So Jimmy, I think, no matter where he was in the world, he would just phone 10 or 15 people every night, until he got through everybody. And he managed to convince, I believe, all of them to rejoin.”

After joining the Pattison Group, Clark rose to the role of chief operating officer, with that taking him all over the continent, including the States. (Clark, who sits on the board of the Overstory Media Group, which owns the Straight, left the Pattison Group in December of 2022, noting that he had turned 65 and was looking to do something new.)

His travels down south before leaving the company gave him some interesting insights into the upcoming American election, where Democrat Joe Biden looks like he’ll be squaring off against embattled Republican frontrunner Donald Trump for the White House.

Noting that he recently spent a lot of time talking to US managers he knew from being under the Pattison Group umbrella, Clark says: “Most of the people who worked for me were voting Republican, and most of them are not voting for Trump. I mean, they’re not happy. They’re not happy with that choice ... They told me they weren’t gonna vote for him. So it appears to me he’s less popular than he was four years ago. But that’s not what the polls are reflecting. So I have to be optimistic that that’s not the case.”

He also has thoughts on the rise of conservatism in Canada.

“I think it comes from that dissatisfaction and disaffection of so many people, particularly in rural Canada,” he says. “And I think things like the housing crisis, you know, I think people are just lashing out at the system—it doesn’t work for them. And so, I mean, the trick for a progressive government and an NDP government would be to capitalize on that anger to drive change, as opposed to, you know, where it looks like it’s going.”

You can listen to the whole interview here.