Steve Dyck knows he is facing a big challenge.
But the Guelph Green Party candidate for the upcoming federal election is up to it.
“I like a challenge. I do tend to pick big challenges. I tend to work on the big problems,” says Dyck, 51, over coffee at The Common Cafe.
A former provincial candidate for the Greens in 2011, Dyck now sees challenge of seizing an opportunity, born in part by a national shift in the political winds and the Mike Schreiner-generated optimism among the local Greens.
Dyck’s connection to the earth and environment came the old fashioned way, growing up on a farm in northern Alberta.
"Growing up on the farm gave me a real concern for the care of the soil. We saw how we treated the soil would impact us for years into the future," says Dyck.
“Building the life force of the soil. Living soil.”
His paternal roots are in the Mennonite faith, where there is respect for the land. Caring and concern for the earth were important.
“That’s what my dad would say, ‘if you take care of the soil, the soil will take care of you,’” says Dyck.
He was born in Calgary. His mom Margaret an immigrant from England who came to Canada to escape an abusive father and his dad Norman a former teacher who was the son of a Mennonite kicked out of faith for playing banjo and smoking.
“We were very poor. My mom supported us through haircutting at The Bay. My dad was a former teacher who went back to school,” he says. “It was a challenging time.”
Eventually the family bought 660 acres of forest an hour outside Grand Prairie in northern Alberta.
“It was just a dream out in the woods. There wasn’t even a road to it. Eventually it became our farm,” Dyck says. “I grew up pulling stumps. Building a farm out of a forest.”
It was a cold and isolated place that included a daily 90-minute bus ride to school.
Parents worked the farm. Dyck was the kid organizing outdoor hockey games, baseball or sledding parties.
Farming, and the independence needed when you are an hour away “from anything” is where Dyck became a hands-on person.
“Fix anything. Weld anything.”
It’s also where his connection with the earth became deeper.
There was no future in the family farm. One by one they were being bought out by corporate farms.
Decimating a way of life and decimating community.
Dyck admits he “hated” school, but it was a way out.
He was attending college in Pennsylvania he met his future wife Vera while looking over a student notice board one day.
“I was standing looking at a notice board and there was an outing club notice and this really cute redhead comes up to me and says ‘you should go on that outing club trip.’ It was pretty much love at first sight.”
Steve and Vera, a family therapist, have two children, Nathan, 27, and Amber, 25.
After school Dyck moved to Toronto to work so he could be close to Vera, who was still at school in Pennsylvania.
That first job was as an air pollution scientist, climbing smokestacks and testing what was being released into the air.
After their son was born, he landed a job in Pennsylvania, doing similar work.
Then came work in the automotive industry in Indiana.
“After 9/11 I just had to get out of the U.S. I was horrified by the response to 9/11 by the amount of money spent on the military.
“I just felt there were so many better ways than the military machine.”
In 2002 the Dycks moved to Guelph so Vera could finish schooling at the U of G.
“We liked Guelph. It was a rural university city,” he said.
He worked in engine development then lost his job when General Motors collapsed in 2009.
“I really wanted to own my own business and I really wanted to do something good,” he says, so Guelph Solar was born, installing solar power systems.
“It was a challenging, innovative industry but a growth opportunity and I was very interested in the technology,” Dyck says.
“The concept of ‘right work’ is very important to me.”
Last year Guelph Solar did $2 million in business.
Politics was always close to the Dyck family heart. His dad ran for the NDP party in the 1980s.
Dyck himself became politically active in 2006 after contemplating which party he felt had the best platform in 2006.
“I was on the 401 driving to work thinking and decided the Greens actually had the best platform,” Dyck says. “They made sense to me.”
He ended up putting up signs for local candidate Ben Polley and the rest is history, with some, he hopes, still to be written.
“My parents are really proud of me. My dad says ‘don’t let it go to your head, and stay humble,’” Dyck says.
Asked what he has learned from Schreiner and the Green Party’s recent gains, Dyck answers that “not being divisive and toxic, but being complementary and really listening to what’s important to people.”
