Review staff
One of Alberta’s daily newspapers has named a local advocate as one of ten non-political Albertans who played a big role in matters of provincial affairs in 2007.
Lavesta Group chair Joe Anglin of Rimbey received accolades from the newspaper for his efforts in defending the rights of landowners in the area who were opposed to the construction of an AltaLink power line over their land.
On top of that, he was also instrumental in the revelation that the province’s Energy and Utilities Board had ordered individuals to spy on the activities of himself and members of the Lavesta Group.
As part of their analysis of Anglin and his efforts, the newspaper said he was most likely to receive a lump of coal in his Christmas stocking from the government and also referred to him as a ‘rabble-rouser’ for his efforts in the campaign against the government’s controversial Bill 46, a phrase he said he kind of liked.
“My name has appeared in the newspapers a lot over the last couple of years and most of it is real ho-hum stuff. Some times they quote me correctly, some times not. But that one pleased me quite a lot actually. I actually chuckled,” Anglin said in an interview conducted last Wednesday.
“I liked that because I know what I was up against and I know what these people (Lavesta Group) were up against and to get somebody’s opinion that they would love to put coal in my stocking – as kind of analogy, I liked it because for me and for the people I represented, this was a moral fight too,” he said. “It was a fight about a power line, but it was also a fight about the lies the industry was claiming and it was a propaganda campaign we always had to fight against, and we beat them.”
Seen by many as a modern-day Robin Hood defending the defenseless against a government bent on getting their way no matter what, Anglin said as humorous as the moniker ‘rabble-rouser’ may sound, in his opinion it’s the other way around.
“It’s a phrase that you’re labeled and you live with it. It is rabble-rousing when you go against the grain. Unfortunately it should be just the opposite,” he said. “They should be the rabble-rousers for violating a very judicious and democratic system, and they’re not looked as the rabble-rousers, they’re looked at as the norm. So be it.”
But there’s a lot more to Anglin than just causing major ripples throughout the halls of the provincial legislature.
Born in Brockton, Massachusetts and raised in New Hampshire and Vermont, Anglin holds duel Canadian-American citizenship and at the age of 17, he enlisted in the United States army becoming a Marine and serving in action during the Viet Nam war in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.
He also worked for three years as a police officer in Bedford, New Hampshire before graduating from university and joining American Telephone and Telecommunications (ATT) as an engineer.
Anglin also worked as a communications liaison officer at the White House for former American President George W. Bush where he coordinated with the Secret Service to ensure that digital data circuits were available to the media who were covering and reporting on the activities of the former President, but stressed in that case at least, the position was technical, not political.
When it does come to politics however, Anglin said he has always taken an active role and was involved even as a teenager.
“I’ve always been interested in politics and always active. While I was in the Marines I was very much against the war movement, although you can’t vocally be that way in the Marines, you can be in your heart. There’s no question when I came out, I had a real epiphany and it woke me up to the realities between the political propaganda and the reality of life, and it changed me,” he said.
“My political views have always been – I like to call them logical. I’ve voted both Republican and Democrat, Conservative and Liberal, I’ve always looked at it, on a political level, of voting for the character of the person as opposed to just the leader”, he said.
“To me the government doesn’t work by the leader. Yes, it does in a way, but it’s the quality of the people that you send,” Anglin said. “You’ll get the proper leaders, but you have to send people of good character who are hard working. We do ourselves a disservice if we go the other way.”
He added that while he considers himself to be somewhat of a small ‘c’ conservative, he is quick to point out that he does not identify with those currently forming the government at both the provincial and federal levels.
“I still go on the premise that the idea of sending somebody to be your MLA or to be your representative in government is that they represent you, not the party,” he said. “That’s why I joined the Green Party – actually they cordoned me, but I had one thing that I demanded that I needed before I joined and that is simply that if it came down to a division between my constituency and the party line, I will go with the constituency every the time, that’s the job.”
Anglin took a bit of a long route in ending up in Rimbey with his wife Deb who currently works as the pastor of the local United Church.
The couple met in Quebec and following a 17-year career in upper management of a number of major telephone companies in the United States; combined with his wife’s desire to live and work in Canada, they relocated to Gibsons, B.C. where she worked as the minister of a church in North Vancouver.
After eight years on the west coast, they felt they needed a bit of a change and with his wife’s family mainly based in Saskatchewan, they decided to seek a new home east of the Rocky Mountains.
“She went looking for a church and she interviewed for the United Church here in Rimbey and the rest is history. She picked the church and her first question was ‘where’s Rimbey?’” Anglin said. “I looked it up on the map and took a little trip here. I wanted to be close enough to the mountains so that I could go fly-fishing. I love the outdoors and I love fly-fishing. It was close enough and I said let’s do it, and we ended up here.”
As for rising to the top of one of the province’s most vocal opposition, grassroots groups, Anglin said it resulted more from curiosity when while investigating the collapse of American power giant Enron, he attended a public meeting at the Bluffton Hall two years ago that piqued his attention.
With 200 to 300 people in attendance to discuss the-then recent announcement of the proposed AltaLink power line that was expected to be constructed in the area, Anglin said he sensed that those in attendance weren’t really aware of what was about to happen to them.
“I stood up part way through the meeting after listening to a number of people and I realized they didn’t have a clue, and why would they? But I did. I was involved with this stuff. I was involved with engineering the lines that crossed people’s land,” he said. “I ended up getting elected as vice-chair. In all honestly, I was actually wrong about a lot of what my assumptions were because I had no idea of the political corruptness involved in the process. I’ve dealt with this everywhere I’ve been.”
From there, Anglin said the Lavesta Group was born and immediately launched a campaign against the proposed power line fueled by a statement issued by AltaLink claiming that without the line, “the lights will go out in Calgary”.
As a long-time employee in the utilities-supply industry, Anglin knew that statement was completely false.
“It took on a life of its own,” he said. “Every time we turned over a new stone we found some other thing that didn’t make any sense.”
As for the future, now that there are no longer applications anymore applications before the government to construct the power line, Anglin said the time has come to step aside and concentrate on another battle that could soon be on the horizon.
“I’m actually going to step down as the leader of the Lavesta Group (effective last Friday evening) because there’s no application right now. What’s going to happen is I’m going to work full-time on the election and I don’t want the group to be caught up in the duel role,” he said. “We have Liberals, Green Party supporters, we have lots of Conservatives and it would be unfair to have the leader of the group make a run in the election and sort of somehow label the group as supporting the candidate.”
As for the battle ahead, Anglin admits that his chances are slim given the fact that the riding has been painted in Tory blue for many years.
“I’m confident I can debate anywhere, any time. I’m not confident they want to debate me on the issues. I am confident that I can make a good run, but I’m a realist. I know how people vote and I know that you just can’t meet all 10,000 voters one-on-one,” he said. “To unseat a Conservative in this riding is probably bigger than beating AltaLink. I don’t know if it can be done. There is always a possibility. But I know one thing, just like in the fight with the power line – nobody will outwork me and I’ll give it my best effort.”
With tenacity like that, it’s easy to see why he is considered one of ten non-political Albertans who played a big role in political affairs in 2007.