When Mike Klassen ran for student council at Killarney secondary school in the late 1970s, he donned a sports jacket and tie every morning and did an elevator pitch to each homeroom in the school.
Thus began his involvement in politics.
As director of provincial affairs for British Columbia for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), 51-year-old Klassen’s job is now non-partisan, which makes it difficult to indulge in what he describes as a passion for public policy.
“I don’t see this as a vehicle for politics,” he said. “I see this as a vehicle for trying to get good things happening for our community and for small business.”
Although it’s a different job, Klassen said working for the CFIB has the potential to allow him more influence than he would have as an elected official.
“CFIB has a lot to be proud of in terms of its influence,” he said, noting the organization, which has 10,000 members in the province and more than 100,000 Canada-wide, was mentioned seven times in the federal government’s 2013 budget document.
After Klassen finished a BA in politics at the University of British Columbia, he didn’t jump right into the public policy arena; he began his working life as a production assistant in the movie and TV industry and worked on some big-name productions, including MacGyver, where he would “make sure nobody got in the way of the helicopter,” and Look Who’s Talking, in which his name appeared in the credits.
A self-proclaimed “early adopter,” Klassen started his first website in 1994 at a time when many people weren’t sure what the Internet was.
This led to a job at Electronic Arts, where he worked in digital production for the game NBA Live.
The hours were long – 18-hour days were common – and the job made it difficult to pursue his interest in working in the community. It was then that Klassen said he learned never to fully remove himself from community involvement.
To this day, he maintains ties to the community and currently volunteers at his daughter’s school
After working in video games for about five years, Klassen began a long stint as a communications consultant. This involved producing web content, video production and script writing. It also kick-started his career as a political campaign manager.
From 2007 to 2008, Klassen served as Vancouver City Planning Commission vice-chairman, which he said gave him the chance to work with some bright “leaders in their fields” to develop public policy papers that he still hopes will influence the city’s long-term direction.
In 2008, Klassen started CityCaucus.com, a blog devoted to local politics, public policy and urban issues.
The most exciting thing about the blog, he said, was the work it did around the 2010 Olympics.
“We spontaneously put together a list of every free event you could go to during the 2010 Games. That resulted in about two-and-a-half million page views on our site in about six weeks. Up to that point, the Games had a reputation as being rather elitist and expensive, so there was a grumpiness in the air.
“Our guide, in a way, changed that feeling about the Games.”
Daniel Fontaine, the CEO of the BC Care Providers Association and former chief of staff for Mayor Sam Sullivan, worked with Klassen on the blog, which closed in the summer of 2012.
“[Klassen] was able to take the blog and turn it into something that really caught on with the public,” said Fontaine. “He was able to engage and have dialogue in a way that I hadn’t seen before, and a lot of other people hadn’t either. He’s pretty innovative in his approach to issues.”
In 2011, Klassen ran for Vancouver City Council.
His bid wasn’t successful, but he had already decided that if he didn’t win, it was time to apply his skills to another venue.
“I spent much of 2012 exploring opportunities, and when CFIB came along I was really excited about it and I pursued it pretty aggressively,” said Klassen, adding that working for the CFIB would allow him to remain active in the community.
Klassen said he wants to use the CFIB’s influence to convince all Metro Vancouver’s municipalities to work toward a common economic development strategy.
“The City of Vancouver doesn’t seem to be working with its neighbours at all in terms of its economic objectives. We’ve got a lot of duplication and competing goals.
“Those are all things that really weaken our hand.”
Another area of focus is the newly reinstated PST, which Klassen said needs to be made “a bit more like the HST” in terms of input tax credits in order to keep the province competitive in attracting small business.
Klassen no longer blogs about politics, but that doesn’t mean he’s done with blogging altogether.
He and his wife of 15 years, Stacey, have taken their love of wine and turned it into bcwinelover.com, a blog about the wine industry in British Columbia.
“It’s an industry, like the film industry 20 years ago, that’s fledgling and proving that it has a value. It really builds on the reputation of our province.”
Klassen’s many pursuits might appear to be unrelated, but Fontaine said the combination allows him to approach issues from different angles because he’s worked in different sectors of the economy.
“Mike is one of those Renaissance types,” said Fontaine. “He’s got this really varied background in the way he approaches issues day-to-day.
“That’s a uniqueness to Mike that people quickly pick up on after they’ve met him.”
Klassen said many of his colleagues have been with the CFIB for a long time.
Dan Kelly, the organization’s president and CEO, has been around for 18 years; executive vice-president Laura Jones has been there for 10 years.
“For the immediate future, I’ve found an organization I’m going to be with for a good period.”
This doesn’t mean stepping away from public policy has been easy.
“I have been going through a withdrawal from politics not unlike trying to quit smoking.”
