Profile: The Door Stop, Campden, Ont.
“I’m a
woodworker” This magazine has long held that politicians make horrid businessmen. Horrid. This current extension of the pandemic panic is but the latest and greatest example. But that opens a question to the converse: do businessmen make good politicians? Enter David Bylsma, proprietor of The Door Stop in Campden, Ont., and mayor of West Lincoln. Looking positively non-mayoral in shorts and an open shirt on this 34C July day, he grinned ruefully and remarked, “you must have heard of my non-manufacturing avocation.” I had. I even saw an internet photo of him in
INDUSTRY JULY/AUGUST JULY/AUGUST 2020 2020 16 WOOD INDUSTRY
a coat and tie — daring for a wood-industry professional, even in winter. As we settled on folding chairs on the former loading dock of what was once a seed-and-feed store, Bylsma tried to pre-empt a question that was not coming. “I suppose you heard about the ‘pride’ issue,” he asked? I hadn’t, I said, “… but now that you mention it…..” Bylsma flashed what I soon learned to be his signature, impish grin. He said as mayor, he had not allowed the flying of the pride, rainbow flag. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said, “this is not about lgbtq. Not a bit. It is about this
