Bill Hanson is used to being counted as one of seven.
Not only is he part of the seven-member Flin Flon city council, he grew up with six siblings in one of the community’s largest families.
“I had a fairytale childhood, to tell you the truth, compared to a lot of my friends and a lot of people that I grew up with,” recalls Hanson, now 57. “We were a strong Catholic family. We had both parents work because, you know, when you have seven kids, both parents have to work.”
While residents recognize Hanson as a straight-talking city councillor, many know little about the man behind one of the longest political careers in Flin Flon history.
A thin, fit man with an expressive face and light brown hair parted down the middle, Hanson was born and raised in
Flin Flon.
He was one of seven children – and the only boy – in a family led by dad William and mom Judy. With so many mouths to feed, money could be tight.
“I thought leotards were long underwear until I was about five,” says Hanson. “I remember my mom trying to send me to school with a pair of pants [with] a zipper on the side. I didn’t go that day, I just went in the bush. I thought I’d get beat up if I went.”
Though Hanson loves his six sisters, he admits he always longed for a brother. His last chance came when he was 10 years old and his mom gave birth to her final child, daughter Jennifer.
“When my sister Jen was born, I really wanted a brother bad, and my buddy always laughed at me,” says Hanson with a smile. “I remember I drove over there on my bicycle and he says, ‘So what’d you have, what’d you have?’ And I looked him in the eye and I burst into tears and said, ‘I got another sister, man!’”
Work ethic
Hanson developed a strong work ethic from an early age, helping his father and neighbours with house repairs. By 14 he had a job delivering sheets to local hotels.
He wasn’t necessarily cut out for school. He found himself bored and frustrated in class, so after Grade 10 he made the decision to quit.
Hanson would later finish high school at
Red River College in Winnipeg, one of many communities he called home as a young man.
He insulated condos
in Uranium City, Saskatchewan, worked with people with developmental disabilities in Wadena, Saskatchewan, installed drywall in Salmon Arm, BC, and joined a Christian drama company in Tennessee.
When an illness struck in the mid-1980s, Hanson returned to Flin Flon from the States to get some tests done. He got better, but when he tried to go back to the US, he wasn’t allowed in.
Then in his late 20s, Hanson decided to stay in Flin Flon. He married the love of his life, Shonnah, and started his own contracting business.
By now Hanson, who had taken a cabinet-making course in Saskatoon, had found his niche in carpentry. His love of working with his hands came from his father.
“He never hired anybody to do anything [around the house], because first off he probably couldn’t afford it,” says Hanson. “I remember him teaching me how to do plumbing at 12. We plumbed our whole bathroom and he was so patient. He would say, ‘Okay, sand it off,’ ‘Heat it up, not too hot,’ ‘A half-inch of solder for a half-inch of pipe.’ So that’s how I got started working with my hands. And my mother always told me I was going to be a carpenter.”
Conquer challenge
The skills Hanson mastered through carpentry – patience, perseverance and visualizing outcomes – may have very well helped him conquer one of the biggest challenges of his life.
Though it took time for him to fully face up to it, Hanson once had a drug addiction.
“I just woke up one day and had a look in the mirror and realized that the guy looking at me wasn’t me, you know what I mean?” he says. “And I realized that I was gonna die if I didn’t get over this.”
Hanson never doubted he could defeat his addiction. But rather than entering a treatment program, he drew on support from friends and family.
One friend in particular, then a co-worker, played a pivotal role in his recovery.
“He was just sort of a rock I could lean on if I had to,” says Hanson.
Long career
Few people have served on Flin Flon city council longer than Hanson. By the end of his current term he will have been on council for 19 years across five terms.
Yet when people around him first suggested he
run for council in 1992, Hanson wasn’t entirely sold.
Key to his decision to seek a council seat was a conversation with then-mayor Gordon Mitchell,
a friend Hanson held in high esteem.
“Gordie said to me one day, ‘So, you’ve had a pretty good life in Flin Flon?’” Hanson recalls. “I said, ‘Yeah, I have.’ He said, ‘Well, I think it’s time you put back.’ And I didn’t think that I was council material, really. But he kept talking to me and saying, ‘Bill, all of the councillors are just regular everyday people.’”
Hanson won a spot on council in 1992 but left after a single term in 1995, knowing he would often be out of town for work.
In 2002, again at the urging of Mitchell, Hanson once more sought and won a council seat. He has held that seat ever since.
Accessible
In his role as an elected official, Hanson strives to make himself accessible to his constituents – to a point.
“If people are mad and they want to talk to me, that’s okay,” he says. “But don’t phone me when you’re drunk. That’s the only ones I won’t take, which happens. But I will listen to anybody. If somebody has a complaint – or they have a solution – please tell me.”
Hanson says the political decision that garnered him the most criticism – and the most praise – was the 2011 removal of fluoride from Flin Flon’s drinking water.
He has no problem standing by that vote. A proponent of smaller government, Hanson felt the addition of the cavity-fighting compound amounted to medicating citizens against their will.
Outside of council chambers, Hanson now works as a carpenter at the Flin Flon General Hospital.
An avid outdoorsman, he can often be found boating in the summer and snowboarding in the winter. He also loves travelling and, when he gets the chance, singing karaoke (many say he’s quite good).
Hanson plans to retire from the hospital in four years and leave civic politics at the end of his term in 2018.
But don’t expect him to slow down a whole lot. For Bill Hanson, there’s always some new adventure on the horizon.
