20 questions with former B.C. premier Glen Clark

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For this feature, Globe B.C. borrows from Marcel Proust (and other media who have popularized the French author’s questionnaire) as a way to get to know notable people around the province.

Here is Glen Clark, the former B.C. premier and current president and chief operating officer of The Jim Pattison Group.

1. Do you have a non-work related passion or hobby? What is it?

Working out. Working at my cabin in the Okanagan.

2. What is your greatest fear?

Dying. My father died in his early 50s and his father in the early 40s. And I hated funerals as an altar boy!

3. If you have $1-million to give to a charity, what cause or group would you select and why?

There are so many worthwhile organizations. Maybe, the Downtown Eastside Women’s Shelter. They do terrific, necessary work providing a safe place for women in the Downtown Eastside. And internationally, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders. I admire the fact that this organization does ongoing critical work in countries desperate for help and does not act simply when public attention is drawn to an area.

4. Which living person do you most admire?

Cyril Ramaphosa. I met Mr. Ramaphosa in the 1980s when he was on a tour of Canada raising money for the National Union of Mineworkers in South Africa. He became the ANC’s chief negotiator during South Africa’s transition to democracy. Ramaphosa was believed to be Nelson Mandela’s choice to replace him [as president] in 1997. After losing the race to Thabo Mbeki, Mr. Ramaphosa went into business and became the most successful black business leader in South Africa. A few months ago, he was sworn in as the fifth president of South Africa after apartheid.

5. What do you most value in your friends?

Loyalty.

6. What was your first paying job?

A&W “front room boy.”

7. What is the best present you have ever been given?

A bike. It was a three-speed banana bike!

8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

Listen more, talk less.

9. What is your guiltiest pleasure?

Riding my Harley softail.

10. What trait do you most despise?

Indifference.

11. What do you consider your greatest achievement?

My children.

12. The best movie you have seen in the past year?

The Intouchables (a couple of years ago).

13. The best book you have read in the past year?

A Gentleman in Moscow.

14. Your favorite TV show?

Shetland.

15. What most inspires you?

Non-violent action by ordinary people to change the attitudes of those in power and change the world for the better.

16. What talent would you most like to have?

Play a musical instrument.

17. An object you still own from childhood?

My baseball and football trophies.

18. What is the greatest issue facing Vancouver or B.C.?

Inequality.

19. What life lesson have you learned this year?

While the speed of technological change is faster than ever, we will likely look back on 2018 as relatively calm compared to the pace of change in coming years. So embrace change.

20. What is your life motto?

Run faster than everyone else.