Candidate Profile: Rob Bertrand — More Than Common Sense?

Would I trust this person to make decisions that affect my family and my community?

That's the question I keep coming back to when I look at candidates for Kamloops council.

With Rob Bertrand, I had an advantage I don't get with every candidate. I spent more than two hours sitting across from him and talking.

It wasn't a formal interview. There was no list of questions between us. We talked about council, City Hall, business, public safety, leadership, government and some local issues that don't fit neatly into a campaign platform.

That kind of conversation can tell you things a campaign website can't.

It can also create a problem.

I'd already watched some of Rob's Facebook videos and liked what I was hearing. His comments about Kamloops resonated with me, and I was looking forward to meeting him.

That made confirmation bias something I had to watch for.

It's easy to meet someone you already like and start looking for evidence that you were right. So after our meeting, I deliberately looked for reasons to change my mind.

So far, I haven't found one.

That doesn't mean I have all the answers about Rob. I don't. There are still things I want to know.

But the conversation gave me considerably more to work with than a standard candidate profile.

Two hours over coffee

We met on September 5.

Rob showed up on time. He was dressed casually — T-shirt, jeans and work boots — which seemed consistent with the person he presents himself to be.

I wasn't interested in another candidate questionnaire. Most candidates can tell you they support transparency, fiscal responsibility, public safety, better infrastructure and listening to residents. Those answers may be sincere, but they're not particularly revealing.

The first thing I noticed was that Rob listens. He didn't interrupt me or try to take control of the conversation. He didn't seem impatient when I pushed into a subject or asked something he hadn't expected. He didn't appear to be waiting for his turn to get back to his talking points.

That matters to me because a councillor spends four years around a table with people who won't always agree. Being able to listen without immediately turning a disagreement into a confrontation seems pretty important.

Of course, being a good conversationalist doesn't make someone a good councillor. But I came away with a sense that Rob is comfortable listening, thinking and then speaking.

What I noticed when we got into the details

As the conversation went on, I paid less attention to what Rob was saying and more attention to how he was thinking.

He wasn't presenting himself as someone who already knew everything about municipal government. That's actually something I liked.

Rob has never served on Kamloops council. There are things he doesn't know yet, and he'll have a learning curve if he's elected.

But I didn't get the impression that he thought not knowing something meant he didn't need to learn it.

We talked about the relationship between council and administration. Rob doesn't appear to think councillors should simply accept whatever staff recommend. At the same time, I didn't get the impression that he thinks councillors should run the City's operations themselves.

Council has to ask questions, challenge assumptions, set priorities and make decisions. Administration manages the organization and carries those decisions out. I think Rob understands this distinction.

More than a résumé

Rob's work history is another reason I don't think “no political experience” tells the whole story.

His campaign biography describes about fifteen years in sales management, seven years in general and operational management and four years on a housing co-op board, including time as president. He's also been general manager of Notre Dame Tire since 2021.

Managing a business isn't the same as managing a municipality. But Rob has spent years dealing with employees, customers, suppliers, operational problems and decisions that have to be made whether you feel like making them or not.

Although that doesn't qualify him to be a councillor by itself, it does mean he's not walking in without experience dealing with people, operations and responsibility.

I've never believed four years of experience automatically makes someone better at governing. Experience matters, but so do curiosity, judgment, temperament and the willingness to learn.

Rob has never served on Kamloops council, so there will be a learning curve. But our conversation left me thinking he understands that and is willing to learn.

A tire is still a tire

Before I met Rob, one of his Facebook posts had already caught my attention.

He posted a photograph of himself holding a badly worn tire in front of his face. His point was simple: the tire is still technically a tire, but it isn't doing the job it was built to do.

He compared that to city council.

A council can still technically be a council while failing to do what residents elected it to do — listen to the public, debate respectfully, spend taxpayers' money wisely and make decisions that move the city forward.

That resonated with me because it wasn't really about tires. It was about the difference between existing and doing the job you're supposed to do.

After our conversation, his post seemed less like a clever campaign analogy and more like a window into how Rob looks at institutions. He appears interested in whether something is actually accomplishing its purpose, rather than simply whether the required process was followed.

Is common sense enough?

“Common sense” sounds appealing since everybody likes to think they have it.

Candidates can have good instincts yet still make poor decisions if they don't understand the system they operate in. I've seen some criticism of Rob along those lines and it's a legitimate question.

We talked about council and administration. I still don't know how much Rob understands about municipal government, but I heard enough that I wouldn't dismiss him as someone campaigning only on slogans.

Quiet leadership

This is probably the most subjective part of the profile, but it's also one of the things I found most interesting.

Rob is fairly quiet. He doesn't strike me as someone who needs to be the loudest person in the room or constantly prove himself.

During our conversation, I found myself thinking that he has the kind of temperament where people might naturally look to him when things get complicated. It's difficult to explain exactly why.

It wasn't something he said. It was the combination of listening carefully, thinking before answering and not seeming concerned with proving he was the smartest person in the room.

I came away with an impression of natural leadership. If Rob were on a jury, I wouldn't be surprised if he were selected as the foreman.

The council chamber is very different from a coffee shop. The real question is how that temperament holds up when he's under public pressure, challenged by another councillor or facing residents who strongly disagree with him.

A councillor can't do it alone

Before I met Rob, I watched the City's candidate information session online.

Attending one information session doesn't prove someone is ready to govern. I simply noticed that Rob attended. The session was recorded and is available online, so I wouldn't hold it against a candidate if they didn't attend in person.

I also watched Christina Benty's August 18 presentation in Castlegar because I wanted to see whether Kamloops candidates had been given some specially tailored version of the material. They hadn't.

So I don't regard the Kamloops session as evidence that Rob understands municipal government. His attendance was simply one small observation.

The main point is that a councillor has one vote. Rob's ability to persuade other councillors will matter, as will his ability to disagree without making disagreement personal. From our conversation, I believe Rob understands that.

There's more to the campaign than “safer streets”

The more I looked at Rob's campaign after meeting him, the more I realized that “safer streets” doesn't capture everything he's proposing.

His platform talks about public participation, reporting on major spending and projects, measurable outcomes, reviewing major projects and what he calls a “Small Annoyances Audit” to track everyday problems residents raise.

He also wants to reform the Alternative Approval Process and give residents a stronger direct role in major financial decisions.

Those ideas raise some questions.

What exactly does he mean by AAP reform? What would he measure to decide whether a City program is working? What information would he want from administration before deciding a project should change direction?

Those are questions for a follow-up conversation.

Public safety isn't as simple as “make the streets safer”

The same applies to Rob's public-safety message. “Safer streets” is easy to say. It's harder to determine what a municipality can actually do about crime, addiction and homelessness.

Rob's public statements recognize that the City can't solve all of those problems by itself. His platform calls for assessing police, fire, bylaw and community-safety staffing against actual community needs, while also pushing the province on treatment, mental-health services and supportive housing.

That leads to some fair questions for Rob. What would he actually change? What would it cost? What would he measure? And what would convince him that something wasn't working?

Those are the questions I'd want answered before I decide whether the common-sense approach actually works.

What about the Mayor?

I've seen the assumption in online discussion that criticizing council or City Hall means a candidate must therefore be supporting Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson. I don't agree. A candidate can criticize council without endorsing the Mayor, and can agree with him on one issue while disagreeing on another.

I'd rather focus on whether Rob has his own understanding of what council should be doing. After our conversation, I was comfortable thinking he does.

What I still don't know

This is where my assessment remains cautious.

I want to know more about Rob's understanding of municipal finance. I want to know how he would respond when administration gives him advice he doesn't agree with. I want to know how he would handle being on the losing side of a vote.

I want to know what he thinks the current council has done well, and how he plans to get himself up to speed on the parts of municipal government he hasn't dealt with before.

I'd also like to see what happens when the circumstances are less comfortable than a conversation over coffee.

Those aren't gotcha questions. They're the questions I think any newcomer should be able to answer before taking a seat at the council table.

So, would I trust him?

At this point, based on what I've learned so far, my answer is yes — cautiously.

Rob hasn't had a chance to demonstrate what he'll be like as a councillor. What he has demonstrated to me is something different.

He was willing to sit down for more than two hours and have a conversation without a script. He listened. He didn't seem interested in dominating the discussion. He was willing to consider questions rather than treating them as a challenge to his authority.

When I went looking for reasons to reconsider my first impression, I didn't find anything that changed it.

That's why my current Kamloops Critic assessment is Cautiously Recommended.

Cautiously reflects the fact that there are still significant unknowns around municipal finance, governance, administration and how Rob will perform under the spotlight.

The outstanding questions weren't answered simply because I enjoyed talking to him or because his campaign messages resonate with me.

This isn't the end

This is an initial profile, not the final word on Rob Bertrand.

I have more questions I'd like to put to him before election day, and I hope there will be time for another conversation.

If there is, and time permits, I'll publish what I learn. If there isn't, this may be the only profile I write about him.

Either way, I think readers deserve to know how I reached my assessment rather than simply being handed a list of reasons to like or dislike a candidate.

I started with a simple question:

Would I trust Rob Bertrand to make decisions that affect my family and my community?

Based on what I've seen so far, I would. But I'm not finished asking questions.

More candidate profiles

Editorial disclosure

Editorial Disclosure: The assessment expressed here is my editorial assessment based on the information available to me at this point. It may change if further information changes my understanding.

The following recommendation reflects Kamloops Critic's editorial opinion.

Kamloops Critic Recommendation: Cautiously Recommended

I still have many questions for Rob, but based on what I've seen and heard so far, I'm comfortable making this recommendation.

Candidate Response: Kamloops Critic welcomes factual corrections from candidates and will promptly correct any verified errors. Candidates who wish to respond to this profile are invited to submit a response of up to 750 words. Responses may be edited only for length, formatting, or legal considerations.