A lot of people have told me they don't know who to vote for in the forthcoming Vancouver election and have asked me for advice. At the moment, the best advice I can give is to read this article by Christopher Cheung of The Tyee. It's very fair and I generally agree with what he has to say!
Why have so many political brands emerged and what do they stand for?
Read on.
Christopher Cheung 12 Sep 2022TheTyee.ca
Don’t know which party is which
anymore? Here’s your guide. Collage by Christopher Cheung.
It’s resulted in a crowded ballot of
138 party candidates and independent hopefuls running for mayor, council,
school board and park board.
Why so many?
An underlying reason: Vancouver doesn’t
have a ward system. For council, Vancouverites choose 10 candidates to
represent the whole city. Cities with a ward system only vote for one
councillor to represent their part of town, like how they choose an MLA or MP
to represent their riding.
A more recent change: a crackdown
on “big money” in municipal politics. In 2017, the NDP introduced new campaign financing rules. Corporate
and union donations were banned and individual donations were capped at $1,200,
diminishing the fundraising of large municipal parties. It’s evened out the
playing field for small parties vying for seats.
Also: there’s still a power
vacuum waiting to be filled. The Vision Vancouver party under former mayor
Gregor Robertson — known for its environmental policies, social progressivism
and friendliness with real estate
developers — dominated council for three terms and controlled
the school and park boards for some of that time. Come 2018, voters booted
Vision out of government (with the exception of a lone school trustee — we see
you, Allan!).
In Vision’s place, Vancouverites
elected a council with mixed leanings. It was thought that Kennedy Stewart, a
former NDP MP who won the mayoral seat as an Independent, would be enough of a
progressive unity candidate to get motions passed. While some big items were
approved, the government was generally inefficient, with one councillor
describing it as “running on fumes.”
But there’s trouble too on the
right side of the spectrum: the NPA, the main rival of Vancouver progressives
for decades, was splitting. A number of fresh parties have emerged, each
picking up players who’ve ditched the NPA.
So there you have it! A race with
a whole lot of parties: old ones, new ones, rebranded ones.
It’s a lot to digest before
heading to the polls, so here’s our notes on all 11 parties to help you make
sense of the battle lines.
Forward Together
In 2018, Stewart was able to win
the mayoral seat as an Independent, though he did have the backing of the
Vancouver and District Labour Council (no surprise, with his NDP roots) and was
considered the leading progressive candidate due to his experience in federal
politics.
Once again, Stewart has stayed
away from running with other left-of-centre parties. Instead, he’s the
frontliner of a new one, called Forward Together (the party’s logo looks a
bit like the icon for Google Drive).
The name is a popular political slogan that’s
been used by the likes of Richard Nixon and the federal Liberals and Greens.
Stewart badly needs a majority on
council if he wants to get things done. Presiding over a council of
Independents and representatives from four different parties proved challenging
last term. Disparate councillors were eager to file their own motions, drawing
out already long meetings.
“When you think about it in
parliamentary terms, it’s a minority government where every party has a chance
to form a coalition on every vote,” Stewart told The Tyee last year. “It’s almost like an Italian
parliament where you have a hundred parties and 35 governments fall in a row.
You are literally surviving vote-to-vote.”
It would help if his new party
could elect some council candidates to have his back. Forward Together is
running a handful, many of whom have ties to the NDP. One of them is Stewart’s
former communications director. One of them worked as a constituency assistant
for David Eby. Another is Stewart’s wife,
chair of the political science department at Douglas College. None have
experience in elected office.
Non-Partisan Association
It’s the closest thing Vancouver
has to a conservative municipal party, despite the misleading name. The NPA,
founded in 1937, has been known for being pro-business and fiscally
conservative, though it has picked up socially progressive positions popular
amongst Vancouverites over the decades.
Ever since Vision showed up, the
NPA has not been able to elect a mayor. But the power of the party brand has
allowed it to maintain a presence on council. In 2018, the NPA won an
impressive five seats, more than any other party, in the most crowded Vancouver
election to date.
But signs of trouble on the NPA’s
board were already showing when it forbade Hector
Bremner, one of the party’s sitting councillors, to put his name forward for
the party’s mayoral nomination for unknown reasons. Bremner left to lead a new
faction, a self-described YIMBY party (more on that later).
Then came 2019, which marked a
dramatic turning point for the NPA when it elected new board directors.
One of them was Christopher Wilson,
a former bureau chief for the far-right online publication the Rebel, who had
made headlines when calling former climate change minister Catherine McKenna
“climate Barbie,” used by many as a sexist insult. Also elected was Angelo
Isidorou, a writer for the conservative website the Post Millennial, who would
eventually step down over a controversy reported by The Tyee related to a photograph of
him crashing an anti-Trump rally and flashing a hand gesture that has come to
be associated with “white power” extremists. Isidorou denied that he
had flashed a hate symbol and said that he’s since been critical of Trump after
previously being a supporter.
There were also two new directors
endorsed by the Let’s Vote Association, which is against the
province’s sexual orientation and gender identity curriculum.
NPA Coun. Rebecca Bligh, who
identifies as queer, resigned from
the party shortly after because of this, noting it was a break from the party’s
history of LGBTQ2SIA+ support.
A domino of departures followed.
In 2020, four directors quit the party, saying it had become “irrelevant” and
disorganized. In 2021, three other sitting NPA councillors resigned from
the party after it decided to appoint, rather than elect as per usual, a
mayoral candidate for the 2022 election. “[I]t was about as old-boys-club as it
gets,” said one. The
councillors cited the recent party turmoil,
such as its far-right characterizations, and said that they “lost confidence”
and “don’t have faith” in the NPA.
The mayoral candidate appointed
by the board was John Coupar, a longtime park board commissioner known
for helping save the
Bloedel Conservatory at Queen Elizabeth Park. Coupar had been ramping up his
run for over a year, but abruptly resigned in
August. Just two months earlier, he’d be touting a “bright future” for the city. Coupar didn’t share a
detailed reason for his departure, but the Breaker reported a dispute between him and the party’s
board over financial support and policy advice from developer Peter Wall.
To replace Coupar, the NPA found
a new mayoral candidate in Fred Harding, a former cop with experience in London
and West Vancouver. He now runs a business consultancy for corporate clients,
looking to bridge North America and Asia.
This isn’t Harding’s first
election. He ran under the fledgling Vancouver 1st party back in 2018, during
which he said that the
province was “overreaching” and “got it all wrong” with SOGI. It resulted in
backlash that caused one of his party’s own school board candidates to resign. Harding
later said that his comments were about the province’s lack of consultation
with parents. Despite his emergence as a fringe candidate who received about
one-ninth of the votes Mayor Stewart did, Harding received star treatment by
Chinese-language media due to his marriage to Zhang Mi, a prominent singer.
Harding’s message with the NPA so
far has been on law and order.
“I’m looking forward to restoring
safety. I’m looking forward to bringing leadership back to the city,” he said at his
campaign launch. “We need to bring the police back into the equation.”
Vancouver police stats show
a citywide reduction of
most kinds of crimes during the pandemic years, though violent crimes got worse in
poorer inner-city neighbourhoods.
Despite the revolving door of
NPAers, one member on council has remained with the brand. Melissa De Genova is
running for her third term.
ABC Vancouver
Kennedy Stewart’s rival has
returned for a rematch and he’s got a new party to back him up.
Ken Sim was the NPA’s mayoral
candidate back in 2018, during which he lost to Stewart by an incredibly slim
margin of 957 votes.
Sim ended up leaving his party
after the board drama, saying the NPA isn’t what it used to be.
Bremner, the former councillor who broke with the party first, had warned Sim
that a mayoral candidacy with the NPA was a “poisoned chalice.”
Sim is now the mayoral candidate
of ABC Vancouver. Polls are forecasting another close race with Stewart in the
lead.
ABC has become a home for a
number of ex-NPA politicians, one school trustee and three of the councillors
who quit the party this past term, all running for re-election. The party is
also running council candidates that include the vice-president of the BC Care
Providers Association and a retired Vancouver police officer and spokesperson.
ABC says that it is “fiscally
responsible,” a nod to its fiscally conservative NPA roots, which used the same
language. Sim also made what he called a “pretty ambitious” promise to hire 100
police officers and 100 mental health nurses, which opponents blasted as
unrealistic.
Sim is the co-founder of Rosemary
Rocksalt, a local bagel chain, and Nurse Next Door, which offers home care for
seniors.
We’re expecting the party to
blast the Jackson 5’s “ABC” on the campaign trail.
TEAM for a Livable Vancouver
Hmmm, sound a bit familiar?
The original TEAM, The Electors’
Action Movement, was founded in response to the freeway fights of the
late-1960s.
The centrist party, which enjoyed
a council majority in the mid-1970s, launched a number of very Vancouver
lasting legacies such as the safeguarding of city land through a property
endowment fund and the building of homes on its former working waterfronts,
from False Creek to the downtown peninsula. Some consider it the decade when
Vancouver “grew up.” The TEAM
years also saw the creation of Granville Island and the revitalization of
Gastown.
Colleen Hardwick, a former NPA
councillor, is the mayoral candidate for the new TEAM for a Livable Vancouver.
Her father Walter Hardwick, a geography professor, was a founder of the
original TEAM and was elected to council three times.
At city hall, Hardwick is known
for her “harsh” treatment of staff, according to one of her fellow councillors.
Publicly, she’s been characterized during her term as either a neighbourhood
defender or an anti-development NIMBY trying to preserve a bygone Vancouver
(Hardwick once questioned whether people under 40 were really
experiencing a housing crisis). In a rare interview with
Glacier Media (she doesn’t give many),
she rejected the negative labels, saying they were “developed and perpetuated
by my enemies.”
That being said, she’s voted no on
virtually every major council decision during her term: budgets, rezonings, an
update of the reconciliation policy (the only councillor to do so), attempts to
speed up rental and social housing construction, the Vancouver Plan and the
Broadway Plan.
Hardwick is known for being
fiscally conservative — her major council accomplishment was spearheading the
creation of a municipal auditor general’s
office — but in 2020, she outspent her fellow councillors on assistants and
communications.
So what’s her ethos, especially
considering the legacy of the original TEAM? Hardwick has said that she’s against rezonings because they
inflate land values, especially since Vancouver can build on “huge swathes” of
its own land that don’t require them. Her party says it accepts growth, but no more than
necessary, and the city must respect each neighbourhood’s “scale.”
TEAM is running a number of
candidates, which include two park board commissioners who left the NPA,
lobbyist and former NDP political strategist Bill Tieleman (a former Tyee
columnist) and Cleta Brown, a retired lawyer who served provincially as crown
counsel, and the daughter of politician Rosemary Brown, the first Black woman
to be elected to a Canadian provincial legislature in 1972.
While polls are predicting a two-way race between Stewart and Sim,
Hardwick is the runner-up. To the segment of Vancouverites unhappy with how
quickly the city has grown, Hardwick is their champion.
Progress Vancouver
Remember the YIMBY party we
mentioned earlier?
Progress Vancouver is the rebrand
of Yes Vancouver, which formed last election and was likely the first municipal
party in B.C. to announce its dedication to YIMBY principles, which call for a
boost in all types of housing supply.
Mark Marissen, who helped found
the party, is now running as its mayoral candidate. Marissen is a political
strategist who’s worked on Liberal and BC Liberal campaigns. While it’s his
first time running for mayor, he worked on the campaign of Christy Clark, his
former wife, for the NPA’s mayoral nomination. She ended up losing in a tight
race to Sam Sullivan. After Marissen announced that he was running for mayor
this year, Clark — who’s since made a name as a BC Liberal premier — gave him
a public endorsement.
The party is running six council
candidates, one of whom is Morgane Oger, the former NDP vice-president and a
well-known trans activist.
As a YIMBY party,
Progress’s housing promises include
loosening up zoning to allow more density and more housing types citywide. The
party is also floating promises that lefties like, such as compensation
for displaced renters (currently being studied by the
city) and the creation of a municipal housing corporation to develop and manage
homes.
Coalition of Progressive Electors
The oldest of Vancouver’s
progressive parties, COPE has not won a majority on council since the 2002
election. That term saw a number of councillors with moderate positions on
taxation and development leave the party to form Vision Vancouver.
The party has struggled to elect
candidates since, though there was renewed excitement when anti-poverty
activist Jean Swanson ran with COPE in 2018 and won a council seat with the
fourth most votes.
She’s running for council again
alongside a handful of others. As in 2018, the party is not running a mayoral
candidate this year.
The party said its
candidates will be fighting for rent control, a living wage, a mansion tax, a
safe drug supply and an end to homelessness.
OneCity
This COPE offshoot has been
gathering steam. It was founded in 2014
but no candidates were elected. In 2018, Christine Boyle and Jennifer Reddy
earned seats on council and the school board respectively. Boyle was a
dependable ally of Mayor Stewart when it came to voting for council motions.
Both are running again, alongside
other candidates for council, school and park board with experience in
education, law, labour, Indigenous governance, urban planning and more.
The socially progressive party
has advocated for more of all types of housing supply and proposed taxing lifts in
land value as the result of zoning and new infrastructure for social spending.
The party often talks about “six
floors and corner stores,” proposing this kind of density citywide to boost
homes and local businesses within walking distance.
Vision Vancouver
Like the Liberals on the federal
stage, Vision tried to position itself as the de facto Vancouver party
(complete with brand colours that match the city’s). How the mighty have
fallen.
After Gregor Robertson decided
not to run for a fourth term in 2018, Vision chose Ian Campbell, a Squamish
Hereditary Chief. But Campbell abruptly withdrew from
the race. About a week later, former charges of assault and impaired
driving came to light,
details that he had not disclosed to the party. (Campbell has since gone on to
continue his work in economic reconciliation.)
This time, Vision is not running
a mayoral candidate, nor is it seeking a council majority with the three
candidates it is running. The party does have eyes on a school board majority,
running five candidates.
Vision did manage to lure two
experienced candidates from other parties to run under its banner. John Irwin
left COPE to run again for park board. Stuart Mackinnon, after three terms on
park board, left the Greens to seek a council seat with Vision.
Green Party of Vancouver
The Greens have always maintained
some presence in municipal government in recent years, but 2018 saw their
biggest gains yet, with three seats each on council, school and park board.
The Greens did well in the
crowded race, likely benefiting from voters on the left and the right giving
them a few seats due to their recognizable brand and collaborative role in
government.
That election, the party’s
politicians also garnered the most votes on those bodies. Adriane Carr in
particular, running for her fourth term this year, has become a council
favourite.
Compared to other councillors,
the Greens’ have been more conservative when it comes to new housing, with
a fairly even mix of
approvals and rejections.
VOTE Socialist
With so many parties bearing
vague or confusing names, here’s a party that stands for exactly what it says
on the tin.
It’s VOTE Socialist’s first
election and the party is running one candidate each for council, school board
and park board. It was founded after some COPE members were displeased with
the party’s direction.
They’ve released an aspirational budget
with 218 promises, which include some that have been already rejected or are
outside of municipal control, from vacancy control, halving the police budget
and free transit for teens and seniors.
Affordable Housing Coalition
Housing remains the hot topic
this municipal election and this new party has decided to put that right in its
name. The party is only running one council candidate, a civil engineer.
They’re pushing for supply solutions like denser zoning, saying that Vancouver
is a “city, not a suburb,” but also measures to cool the market, from taxes on
luxury homes and land appreciation.
To read some of my personal observations of the mayoral candidates following an early mayoral town hall, check this out http://gellersworldtravel.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-first-vancouver-mayoral-debate.html
I would also like to see more video cameras at crosswalks and greater publicity about the consequences of not stopping when someone is trying to cross. I would also like to see reduced speed limits and more speed monitors like those found throughout Toronto.
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