Halifax Daily News
Monday, March 14, 2005
You can’t really know Halifax Mayor Peter Kelly until you’ve seen him on the roof of City Hall.
He’s relaxed, even playful, up there – not at all like a politician. He’s himself. And he’s the same way beneath City Hall, showing off the basement: an old jail and a place to store discarded furniture. Kelly initiated this whirlwind City Hall tour, but is also squeezed for time. He runs up and down the carpeted stairs like an Olympian in training, and still has the breath to be chief civic cheerleader when he stops.
Trying to keep up with him, you can see he genuinely enjoys the privileges that come with holding office. He gets to go places other people don’t.
He gets to make an aging, key carrying security guard run up and down the stairs of City Hall at a breakneck pace behind him. And he gets to stand on the roof and look out over the city like a watchful guardian, pointing out a good place to get lobster and a good bar to grab a beer in. He’s excited, and unabashedly proud, yet serious at the same time. He’s like a pre-teen boy showing off his father’s porn collection to friends.
The roof and jail are where Kelly gets to show that he’s not just another boring politician. He’s also a guy with a lighter side. He chats casually, and laughs, and brags about his city. It’s endearing. Between those two extremes, though, in his second floor office, he’s just another mundane politician, forced to say boring things that will play well to the masses. Things like, “Our people are the greatest people in the world.”
When challenged, when asked if the people of Halifax are better than those in Toronto, he retreats from his presumptuous initial statement.
“No better, no worse,” he says.
Interestingly, it’s also in his office where Kelly’s stutter is most pronounced. It wasn’t noticeable on the roof, or in the jail. But it is in his office – as if the mental cage politicians are forced to think within is making him doubt his words.
Kelly takes pleasure in pointing out the Winston Churchill photo on his office wall. Churchill had a speech impediment, too. Kelly says he’d never compare himself to Churchill, but it’s a good reminder of what can be accomplished despite the minor disability. It’s a touching story, and very much a politician’s story. It’s a tale of a man overcoming obstacles, just like all of us struggle to do.
On the roof, though, Kelly doesn’t have to tell such stories to prove he’s like everyone else. Up there, sharing a laugh with the security guard, enjoying a moment away from his desk, he is like everyone else.