Michael Audain is pictured in Vancouver on March 7, 2013.The Canadian Press
For this feature, Globe BC 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 Michael Audain, chairman of Polygon Homes Ltd. and founder of the Audain Art Museum in Whistler.
1. Do you have a non-work related passion or hobby? What is it?
Art, especially that created by the original people of our coast.
2. What is your greatest fear?
Not making a difference.
3. If you have $1-million to give to a charity, what cause or group would you select and why?
Other than supporting our family foundation, which focuses on the visual arts and the grizzly bears, I support Médicins sans frontières (Doctors Without Borders), which does such wonderful work all over the world.
4. Which living person do you most admire?
The Queen. For her steadfast commitment to keeping her chin up and just doing her duty, no matter how heavy her crown.
5. What do you most value in your friends?
A willingness to offer me constructive criticism.
6. What was your first paying job?
Installing rooftop TV aerials at the age of 16. I was fired at the end of the first day.
7. What is the best present you have ever been given?
B.C. government scholarships that supported me through three degrees at the University of British Columbia.
8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
After age 80, I have been content to accept my shortcomings, but I wish that I could be slimmer.
9. What is your guiltiest pleasure?
None.
10. What trait do you most despise?
Slavery to the popular wisdom of the day.
11. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Who knows? But I have been privileged to play a role in starting some NGOs – the latest being the Grizzly Bear Foundation.
12. The best movie you have seen in the past year?
Pier Pasolini’s 1964 The Gospel According to St. Matthew, on YouTube.
13. The best book you have read in the last year?
Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson.
14. Your favourite TV show?
The 5 a.m. BBC news.
15. What most inspires you?
Stories of people who arrived in Canada with only the clothes on their back, and then a few years later substantially contribute to the economy and culture of their new land, the Vietnamese boat people being a good example.
16. What talent would you most like to have?
The ability to retain languages. My French and Thai are gradually fading.
17. An object you still own from childhood?
A miniature pair of boxing gloves autographed for me by heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey in 1946.
18. What is the greatest issue facing Vancouver?
Facing Vancouver? How to build much taller buildings to accommodate those who want to live here, without sacrificing Vancouver’s precious lifestyle.
19. What life lesson have you learned this year?
To always say to my wife, Yoshi, “Yes, darling”.
20. What is your life motto?
Do it now!
Ian Bailey