By Michelle Pucci
www.thesuburban.com
There’s a new federal Conservative candidate in Laval. Architect and ten-year resident Roland Dick ran unopposed for candidacy in Laval’s western riding, Laval Les Îles, and joined the race for next year’s federal elections after years as a Conservative party member.
“I’ve been involved in Laval for many activities for years and years and years,” Dick said, speaking about his work as a volunteer in the community. Dick listed volunteer partnerships with the city for a blood drive in 2007 and a new project he’s working on in Pont-Viau to provide warm meals to homeless people called Bonheur du ciel.
Dick, who moved to Montreal in 1990 from Lebanon is also the president of the World Lebanese Cultural Union, but insists he identifies completely as a Lavallois. “I work as a Lavallois, I don’t work just for my community,” he said. “I want [the community] to be fully integrated, I push for integration.”
Dick is a father of three, and emphasizes his children’s ties to Laval and Montreal after growing up here, but also as a guiding point for his family first conservative values. Without a defined platform so early in the campaigning stage, he says he’ll push for fewer taxes and more programs like children allowances. He also believes in the Conservative’s record with economic policies and job creation.
“It’s a different era now,” he said, speaking about the riding’s Liberal tendencies, until François Pilon from the New Democratic Party was voted in in 2011. “I know people will vote for the party leader, but I also think people will vote for the people that are working for them,” Dick said. He is optimistic he can expand the party’s membership in Laval. With a degree from University of Montreal in architecture , Dick now runs Archi-Tech, a Laval-based firm. The company he says works exclusively on private planning and construction projects, mostly in the medical field—never bidding on public projects, which have been the source of corruption scandals in the city over the years.