BC municipal elections 2011
November 10, 2011 - 4:28pm
It's only a week away now and advance polling has started - but since the topic of Vancouver elections has come up in a thread about BC provincial politics, I thought I'd start this thread too.
Interesting endorsement news:
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Vancouver+Fire+Fighters+Union+backs+Gregor+Robertson+Vision/5690553/story.html
The Vancouver Fire Fighters Union has announced its support for Gregor Robertson and all seven Vision council candidates in the upcoming Nov. 19 election.
The union (IAFF Local 18) is also backing three non-Vision members for council: NPA's Sean Bickerton, Green Party's Adriane Carr, and COPE's Ellen Woodsworth.
So for whichever reason, they have decided to stiff RJ Aquino & Tim Louis, in favour of Bickerton and Carr.
Thanks for starting this thread, tli!
Developers running wild in Vancouver!!!
Exactly.
Gregor Robertson's planning policies meet opposition from Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouverhttp://www.straight.com/article-527036/vancouver/mayors-planning-policie...
The problem, according to her, is that Vision Vancouver and the NPA both generate millions of dollars to run their campaigns, and much of this comes from the development industry. “So essentially, what you have is the regulators being funded by those that are being regulated,” Murphy said. “That is a fundamental problem in the system. So when you look at the different types of policies that each of them have been bringing through when they each had a majority, they’re very similar.”
To illustrate her point, she claimed that the NPA’s EcoDensity policy, which was advanced by ex-mayor Sam Sullivan, was based on the claim that density is environmentally beneficial. And therefore, more density was seen as being more environmental friendly.
"Rather than having it community driven, it’s a top-down model,” she said
Murphy accused Vision Vancouver of acting in a similar manner with the so-called STIR—short-term incentives for rental housing—program. She characterized it as a plan to dump density into neighbourhoods like the West End. Murphy claimed that under this policy, developers can receive huge subsidies, up to $100,000 per unit, for building rental units at market rates.
“Those are basically flawed programs that are brought forward to meet certain interests that are not necessarily to the public interest,” Murphy declared. “We have to get to the point where the people on council are actually representing the good of the public, rather than just the good of certain funders.”
It's worth noting that NSV doesn't endorse a single Vision candidate either for Mayor or council, but they have endorsed Bill McCreery. It sounds like the best outcome would be a Robertson re-election with Vision losing its majority on council.
...unless Visions losing its majoriy lead to the NPA having a majority on council - I'm not sure what good could come from that!
What do people make of the NPA releasing its internal polling, and the way they're presenting it?
It certainly looks like a catastrophe for Vision unless they have a killer vote-pulling organization of which I'm unaware.
COPE gets all of its candidates elected and then is in a better position to build a slate that can outright win the next election.
From a practical standpoint - if Gregor is still mayor but Vision has a "minority council", it jsut means they end up playing both sides. Anything right-leaning they can cozy up to the NPA for, and anything left-wing to COPE.
But that is what is going to happen when you con and sell out the very people who supported you and helped to put you into office.
We have 2 developer based parties in Vancouver - Vision and the NPA, and like the coke ad states if you are right, or right of centre, you might as well go with the real thing.
The Vision Vancouver Party is basically over. And they are going down because they got too big for their britches and wouldn't listen. Vision is a top-down run party and they won't be missed.
Shades of the federal Liberals playing out all over again right here in this year's municipal elections in Vancouver.
...unless Visions losing its majoriy lead to the NPA having a majority on council - I'm not sure what good could come from that!
The upshot is that Vision would be exposed. They are mostly supported by centre-left voters, people who supported Vision/COPE to stop the NPA. Would they still support Vision if Vision voted with the NPA a good number of times?
Yeah, I'm surprised at the major developer support at the recent VV fundraiser whereby ~1,000 of the creme de la creme attended. BTW, while driving around Vancouver what has happened to Vision Vancouver lawn signage? it almost seems to be non-existent compared to 2008. OTOH, the NPA seems every where I drive!
Today's poll released by the NPA showing Gregor only leaading by 6% may be bogus or maybe not. The pollster, Hamish Marshall, was also the former head of Angus Reid Strategies' Vancouver office when ARS released its 2005 provincial poll with bang-on results. The NPA's pollster also showed Anton at only 32% in its October survey, the same result as the independent Justason polled in October.
More interesting is the cross-over pollination of Vancouver provincial voters:
VV's Robertson:
NDP - 54%
Lib - 36%
NPA's Anton:
Lib - 57%
NDP - 39%
http://postmediavancouversun.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/npa-poll.pdf
COPE gets all of its candidates elected and then is in a better position to build a slate that can outright win the next election.
COPE is only running 3 candidates for 10 member council and Tim Louis is one of them. Louis is both "hard"-left and a miserable guy who idolizes Che Guevara with his T-shirts. Too far left for me.
Phew! Thanks for bolding "hard" there. For a second, I almost liked the guy. But he's "hard" left. And he uses his t-shirts to idolize Che Gueverra, a known asthmatic and rugby cheat. Shame on Tim Louis!
Adrian Dix has been mentioning the Vancouver election on Twitter. On November 3 he was at a Vision event, and he's retweeted Patti Bacchus, the Vision account, and Aquino.
COPE gets all of its candidates elected and then is in a better position to build a slate that can outright win the next election.
Get those 3 elected, then run more candidates next time.
FWIW, Hamish Marshall was a longtime BC Councillor for the federal Conservative Party and worked in Harpo's PMO. Not saying that makes the poll inaccurate but something to be aware of.
Last election around this time the Georgia Straight published a list of endorsements. I guess we'll be seeing them later this week? Should be interesting.
Signs. I don't know what people here are talking about, but I haven't seen all that many NPA signs. Are you talking about the southern half of the city or something? I've seen quite a lot of Vision and COPE signs.
The best result? Well that's tough. Vision is a property developer/union backed party. The NPA is a property developer/big business backed party. COPE is a union backed party. And the Greens have aligned themselves with the NPA for some reason that I can't really fathom. Hence, the best realistic result in this election would be the NPA (and Anton) being shut out with Vision and COPE electing all of their candidates. This will lead to greater distance between COPE and Vision, the implosion of the NPA and a straight up competion between a centre/centre-right Vision and centre-left/left COPE next time.
I'm not a huge Tim Louis fan because of his role in helping to destabilize the centre-left majority from 2002-2005, which lead to Sam Sullivan and the NPA winning a majority in 2005. But I think he's a good opposition figure, just keep him away from government since he's useless at compromise. That being said, with Vision going from a clearly centre-left party to an amorphous centrist organization (and with my scenario they will be somewhat right) they're still better than the NPA and have done a lot of good things the latter wouldn't, but they're somewhat of a let down too and need to be kept on a short leash. FWIW voting for parties like the Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver Alliance wouldn't be a particularly smart strategy either, because all it will do is help ensure NPA dominance. Way to cut off ones nose to spite ones face.
Still, I'm somewhat less than optimistic about the citizens of this city in a way that's independent of whatever the results are. Not when it comes to the election results (I can't really handicap those since there's a lot of contradictory information), but when it comes to affordable housing and the possibility that this city could ever be a place where the next generation grows up (assuming they don't inherit their parent's housing).
The owners in this city will never do anything to help make it more affordable. This isn't just big developers, but regular home owners too. For starters that will lower their property values, or inhibit the run away growth in property values, which make them think they're rich, so why would they want that? Hence, neither Vision nor the NPA will take on big developers with any policies that would encourage the building of more affordable units, while 'punishing' speculation. That said, I don't think COPE would either because the second any council does that they wouldn't have a shot in hell of being re-elected. In addition COPE is full of 'neighbourhood activists' who are 'against density' because they think it would 'ruin' the 'character' of 'their neighbourhoods. This anti-density position is utterly absurd because significant increases in density will have to be a part of a comprehensive plan to return affordable housing to the city, unless their is a significant subsidy offered by higher levels of governments directly to renters, which could easily be gobbled up by owners anyways or cut off. One can question the logic of specific developments like the Marine Gateway. But a substantial increase in density, which will include large buildings outside of the downtown core are coming whether people like it or not. One needs to increase supply to meet up with demand, otherwise prices will get even more ridiculous. Sometimes I think this isn't some much a city but a provincial backwater that hasn't accepted the fact that it's now a city.
A trip down memory lane to some happier times
Sigh.
If Robertson wins again and COPE does well, I would suggest they try to push hard on electoral reform as a way out of the political logjam.
Signs. I don't know what people here are talking about, but I haven't seen all that many NPA signs. Are you talking about the southern half of the city or something?
Yes. As I said in my above post, the area between Ontario and Boundary between 22nd and the river and the Dunbar area are standard belwether neighbourhoods. My concern is that COPE-Vision has minimal sign presence in these areas. Now, when these areas go narrowly NPA, the Left wins; when they go heavily NPA, we lose. The complexion of the signs in this area indicates that they are going to go heavily NPA.
Indeed, when we win, we typically take the area between Ontario and Victoria south of 22nd. Right now, we don't look like we're in contention there. Check out Charlie Smith's column last week on Vision's declining support amongst South Asians.
Spite.
Agreed. That is the best-possible outcome.
Indeed.
Woodsworth said as much in her nominating speech. Unfortunately, for Woodsworth, this means single-member plurality wards.
Woodsworth said as much in her nominating speech. Unfortunately, for Woodsworth, this means single-member plurality wards.
I wonder what form a COPE-Vision agreement would take under an SMP ward system. Maybe they'd choose some but not all wards to be non-compete constituencies?
Or perhaps if they have to go with SMP, could they at least go with a ranked (instant-runoff voting) system?
There's a web site for a similar initiative in Toronto:
http://www.123toronto.ca/main.htm
Re: the signs, in the SE quadrant of the city I've seen quite a few Vision or COPE signs. But, I feel as if there's been a huge decline in signs in the last ten years. People are far less willing to wear their partisanship on their sleeves. That said, seeing more NPA signs relative to their proportion last time shouldn't be surprising. The NPA is far better organized this time seeing as it isn't recovering from yet another putsch or divisive internal leadership campaign. Their last three elections have been dominated by such division so it stands to reason that they're running a better campaign than one would've even expected a few months ago considering their total lack of useful ideas.
A couple of new polls out today:
Forum Research:
Robertson: 47%
Anton: 41%
http://postmediavancouversun.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/forum-poll.pdf
Angus Reid:
Robertson: 47%
Anton: 27%
http://www.angus-reid.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2011.11.14_Politics...
That is a massive gulf between the two polls. Wow.
Well at least Canada's best run city Burnaby has its act together politically. Too bad Vancouver is such a mess.
About Burnaby... do BC'ers think BCA will win all the elected post again this time? :) and in Surrey, do you think the SCC will win any council/board seats this time around?
Corrigan's slate will take every position. But they have a fair wage policy and back the unions without going overboard. What's not to like?
Does the Burnaby "Parents' Voice" stand a chance of any school board seats? (also known as the Homophobia Party)
In other news, I voted last night. Full Vision/COPE slate with one exception to mix it up a bit.
share.... and Indi? or NSV perhaps :P
I'm all for Corrigan, hey they have eared the reputation as the best run city. Generally i'm not keen on one party dominance as debate and discussion can become lacking but hey they seem to prove me wrong.
Anyone have any insight into Surrey, are their any progressive on council (Surrey First dosen't strike me and progressive sicne its Watts party) can the Surrey Civic Coalition win any council seats?
Anyone have any insight into Victoria? looks like there is only one Slate, Open Victoria.
NDP supporters should be shouting the praises of the NDP affiliated Burnaby politicians every single chance they get. We need to be promoting our own accomplishments and what better example than Burnaby to show what NDP policies can accomplish particularly in financial and economic matters. Corrigan's team is an NDP team in everything but name.
Georgia Straight endorses a minority council:
http://straight.com/article-540451/vancouver/straight-slate-voting-day?p...
Gregor for mayor.
Council: Louis, Woodsworth, Aquino (COPE); Sandy Garossino (Ind), Elizabeth Murphy (NSV), Jang, Meggs, Louie (Vision), Bickerton, McCreery (NPA).
Parks: Greenwell-Baker, Granby (COPE), Jamie Lee Hamilton (IDEA), De Genova, Pasin (NPA), Barnes, Sharma (Vision)
The NPA must have a massive war chest, as I have been completely inundated with pamphlets, mailers, elevator ads, billboards, signs, radio commercials, emails, etc promoting the NPA slate. I think I might have received one pamphlet from Vision, and nary a peep from COPE.
It might just be the circles I move in, but nobody seems willing to admit they are voting for Vision. All my friends are either lefties who think Vision is NPA Lite, or more right-leaning people who think Gregor is "Mayor Moonbeam" and who are pissed off about the weak response to the Stanley Cup riots, the ongoing presence of Occupy Vancouver, etc. I remarked to a friend that Vision should be careful - I am constantly amazed at the extent to which people are willing to vote for someone who purports to offer a 'law-and-order' agenda. I have always felt that it was no accident that downtown voters voted for Lorne Mayencourt (twice) running on a 'safe streets' agenda.
I still think Gregor and Vision will likely win, but that is only because the NPA has offered such a profoundly mediocre and weak slate of candidates. Anton got the mayoral nod by default as the only sitting councillor, and the only council candidates I recognized were Elizabeth Ball (former councillor) and Sean Bickerton (who ran last time). Everyone else is a complete nobody. Ladner at least had some half-decent candidates running with him last time. If the NPA had gotten its act together early and assembled a better slate, they'd probably be giving Vision more of a run for their money.
The "Take Back Vancouver" rag from the NPA was just embarrassing.
Why does the NPA spend 80-90% of their time telling us about Vision? Are they so embarrassed by their own lack of a substantive platform that all they can do is rant about Vision? They're giving their political foes plenty of free publicity.
http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/editorials/gregor-robertson-a...
Globe endorses Gregor but with a stronger opposition.
Any predictions? These are mine:
Mayor: Gregor Robertson (VV)
Council: Sean Bickerton (NPA), Heather Deal (VV), Kerry Jang (VV), Mike Klassen (NPA), Raymond Louie (VV), Tim Louis (COPE), Geoff Meggs (VV), Andrea Reimer (VV), Tim Stevenson (VV), Ellen Woodsworth (COPE).
Vision/COPE majorities on both the Parks Board and the School Board.
I'll bite.
Mayor Gregor Roberston re-elected with a 10% margin or slightly less.
VV/COPE majority council but with increased NPA presence: 3 - 4 seats.
Gregor, the comely coward, has been declared re-elected. At this point, all 7 Vision councillors are leading--only COPE's Allan Wong has won for the School Board. Ellen Woodsworth is currently eleventh.
Aaaaand the reality check...
As of the time of writing, 132/135 polls reporting, council elected all 7 Vision candidates, 3 NPA (Affleck, Ball, Yuen), and COPE has been shut out completely. Adriane Carr is biting at Yuen's heels in 11th place, and Ellen Woodsworth is at 12th.
Carr is now 60 votes away from Yuen with two divisions left to report. Woodsworth is about 130 off and looks to miss out. Shame.
Adrienne Carr has just won the final council seat by 91 votes
Last poll just reported (from West End) and the Green's Carr has finally leapt above the NPA's Yuen to take the 10th and final spot leaving 2 NPA councillors.
COPE wiped out except for lone school board seat.
In Burnaby, the left BCA has swept council and school board with Corrigan winning by 76%.
In Surrey, the right Surrey First has also swept council and school board with Watts winning by 80%.
[dp]
Relatively good results all around I'd say. It sucks that COPE was basically wiped out and it's unfortunate that the NPA wasn't completely shut out, but otherwise I'm pleased. Had COPE not been stupid and dumped David Cadman they probably would have had at least one councillor.
As for the Mayoral results, I'm pleased that Anton got crushed. Diss Gregor all you want but he's infinitely superior to her. Heck, she made Ladner look good in comparison. All Anton's campaign seemed to be based on was, "Stanley Cup Riots bad = Visions fault, Occupy Vancouver bad, me go and kick them out = NPA "leadership", bike lanes bad = Vision's fault." It was all a bunch of pseudo-hot button crap and I'm pleased she fell on her stupid face trying to exploit it.
As for outside of Vancouver I don't entirely understand why people around here hate Robertson but make Corrigan's out to be some sort of god. The guy's policies on regional transportation are often quite conservative, even to the right of Vancouver's NPA, and he's not particularly environmentally friendly. If I were to categorize him, I'd say he's centre/centre-left Mayor like Robertson, just in a more 'blue collar' way, whereas Robertson has more of a yuppie/hipster appeal. BFD (big fucking deal).
Complete and utter triumph for Vision Vancouver. Pretty decent night for the Greens. Disappointing result for the NPA. Total disaster for COPE.
I'm most disappointed to see Ellen Woodsworth lose. One of the hardest-working councillors, who definitely deserved re-election.
I was glad to see the voters of Abbotsford so soundly reject the privatization of their water supply. My understanding is the federal Conservative government was trying to foist it on them. On an ideological level, this was best thing I saw tonight.
Ellen Woodsworth got about 3000 more council votes than last election. Same with Bouey and Blakey on school board. But NPA strength buried them in this silly electoral system.
One can surmise that if David Cadman had been nominated by COPE after all, he also would have gained about 3000 more votes, winning a seat in place of Adriane Carr.
Clearly RJ Aquino did not benefit from the alphabet effect tonight.
"NPA strength"? They only elected two councillors and three school trustees, for goodness' sake! (Plus they got their clocks cleaned in the mayoral race.)
Turnout was up this election from last time, so raw vote totals are a meaningless measuring stick. The question is whether a candidate or party's percentage share of the vote increased or decreased over last time.
Bummer about COPE.
"NPA strength"? They only elected two councillors and three school trustees, for goodness' sake! (Plus they got their clocks cleaned in the mayoral race.)
Turnout was up this election from last time, so raw vote totals are a meaningless measuring stick. The question is whether a candidate or party's percentage share of the vote increased or decreased over last time.
Relative strength anyway. The NPA vote was significantly stronger than in 2008.
Anyone know why each municiplity outside of Vancouver reports all results at once, while Vancouver reports its results poll by poll?
I'm most disappointed to see Ellen Woodsworth lose. One of the hardest-working councillors, who definitely deserved re-election.
How did that happen? It seems the COPE-Vision alliance was met with more enthusiasm in 2008 among the left than it was this time around, so you would have thought COPE had a chance to expand its representation.
Well, for starters, let's not forget that Woodsworth barely scraped in last time. She got the 10th council spot, and there were only 1,600 votes separating 10th and 13th place. She also gets penalized by her last name, since for some bizzare reason the names are listed alphabetically on the ballot rather than in random order (this is also, I am convinced, why Suzanne Anton was the lone NPA survivor in 2008).
Looking at the races for Council, School Board and Park Board, it looks to me that there were anywhere from 10 to 20 thousand people who cast a ballot for Vision who did not also vote for COPE. Robertson beat Anton by roughly the same 20,000-vote margin that he beat Ladner by, so I'm not convinced that there was a surge in NPA support that buried COPE. What seems to have happened is, as you pointed out, is that this time around, COPE was unable to take advantage of Vision's coat-tails. Even among Vision voters, there seems to have been some ticket-splitting as Raymond Louie got nearly 10,000 votes more than Tony Tang.
I can only speculate as to why so many Vision voters did not also back COPE, but it may have had something to do with the fact that there were fears that at least one of the COPE candidates (Tim Louis) was not particularly friendly to Vision and would end up destabilizing the alliance. I imagine there will be a big push among some COPE activists to formally end the alliance "since it didn't do us any good" and run a full slate of candidates. The problem, of course, is that it would free Vision to do the same, and I doubt that COPE would do all that well in a head-to-head battle with Vision.
"Letter of the week"
Or perhaps if they have to go with SMP, could they at least go with a ranked (instant-runoff voting) system?
Thereby guaranteeing that no minority voice can be elected; 51% or go home? No thanks.
It didn't help that the full page colour ads by the firefighters union LOOKED like they could have been official Vision ads, but didn't endorse anyone in COPE except Ellen.
I think there must have been a sizeable contingent of centre-not-left voters who supported Vision candidates - and filled the rest of the ballot with NPA and/or Green. Vision benefited from supporters across the spectrum, and COPE did not.
Ultimately it's a sign to me that the voting bloc in Vancouver which is willing to support a left-not-centre agenda is large enough to warrant significant representation - but too small to bust through in the present electoral system. More broken democracy.
In Victoria, I supported David Bratzer for school board trustee but he didn't win a seat. However some of his "running mates" in a loose coaalition did and hopefully this will be enough to break the power of the olde boys.
Tom Ferris, olde boy supreme from the trustees was in shock at the result (as well he should be). Bratzer is a cop with strong views on drug legalization. The "war on drugs" is a huge failure and he wants to build the post war world.
Bratzer questioned the school board on some of their spending and selling of school land about 6 months ago. He put it in a podcast. He used very diplomatic language but even so, after listening, I was of the view that there are rats on the school board and they must be replaced by good people like Bratzer.
I remain confused about why municipal politics cannot bring themelves to use the normal political lablels like ndp conservatiive, etc. My GF in a different district had a mad rush to figure out who she wanted to vote for. If they had a simple label, she would have just voted for the ndp slate. Mabye with an exception if someone had a dodgey past.
Also, municipal elections must be lucrative, there were far more posters than there ever was in a federal or provincial election.
Or perhaps if they have to go with SMP, could they at least go with a ranked (instant-runoff voting) system?
Thereby guaranteeing that no minority voice can be elected; 51% or go home? No thanks.
Well, what it would allow is for candidates with overlapping-but-not-identical constituencies to run against each other. I'm pretty sure COPE would be able to pull 51% between first and second choices in some East Van wards under single-member IRV, even in competition with Vision and the NPA.
Even if FPTP does have the special characteristic that a unique candidate with lots of competitors can win with a minority of the vote... that doesn't make me like it, because it's still a severe distortion. In any case I'd still be pulling for something STVish rather than single member wards.
I remain confused about why municipal politics cannot bring themelves to use the normal political lablels like ndp conservatiive, etc. My GF in a different district had a mad rush to figure out who she wanted to vote for. If they had a simple label, she would have just voted for the ndp slate. Mabye with an exception if someone had a dodgey past.
I think it often comes to pass that municipal politicians of the "same" political stripe as federal/provincial parties have battles and disagreements that could not be easily expressed if they had to be part of a cohesive party line. Moreover, public sentiment may be detrimentally attached to party names. If COPE were called the Vancouver NDP in 2002, I'm sure they'd have been considerably less popular.
In Burnaby the unfair electoral system has again rewarded the BCA with a lock on all seats on both the Council and the School Board. The homophobic Parents' Voice people got too many votes but came nowhere near getting elected. The Mayor polled so high that it is clear that voters from al the other slates voted Corrigan for Mayor. I think that the system needs reform but boy I love the outcomes where I live now however I have lived in places where despite getting a solid third of the votes no left wing person could get elected.
In Cumberland the Mayor (a wishy washy fence sitter) was acclaimed. However the town elected all progressive councillors including Roger Kishi (Catherine Bell's partner) who polled in second place in his first run for council. Maybe Cumberland will get a Ginger Goodwin Way after all. Small town with a great heritage and in dire need of a council that understands the difference between good and bad development.
I agree that when COPE members didn't renominate Cadman it sent a very bad message to unaffiliated voters. He had the white male prestige and name recognition to get reelected, likely instead of Carr. His was a respected environmentalist voice, the kind that pulls votes in neighbourhoods where they like composters and capitalism.
I'd still be pulling for something STVish rather than single member wards.
Agreed. One detail about STV: in parliamentary elections STV districts should be at least 4-seaters, preferably 5s, 6s or 7s, so as to get fair diversity. But for municipal elections with loose parties and independents, some New Zealand municipalities use smaller wards. Take Wellington City, New Zealand's capital and third largest city, which has only 179,466 people. It's the largest place in NZ that uses STV. It has 14 councillors from 5 wards (four 3-seaters and a 2-seater). They don't display affiliations after their election, but they seem to have been two endorsed by Labour, one by Green, and 11 independents, although they had a couple of municipal parties and I'm not sure if some of their candidates won.
My point is, even four wards with 2 or 3 councillors each elected by STV would give each voter competing councillors. Two 5-seater wards might be even better.
In Burnaby the right wing TEAM party tried, again, to make an issue out of the fact that the BCA is an NDP members only party. It is not affiliated with the NDP but a prerequisite for becoming a member of the BCA is already being a member of the NDP. The BCA does not shy away from that issue and instead runs on its record of good government. It also helps that the opposition is incompetent.
Slates make it a lot easier to vote because in Burnaby the civic parties names are on the ballot beside the individual names. I would have had to bring in a cheat sheet to make sure I voted for the people I wanted because even a political junkie like me is not going to remember all the candidates running for my party.
To be brutally honest, a full Vision ticket of 10 candidates would have swept the entire council. If Woodsworth had been a Vision candidate, I have no doubt she would have been elected. Same would've applied for Cadman.
This leaves COPE in an awkward position. Is it possible for COPE activists to work within Vision to counter the influence of developers? Is it possible to have a couple of more left candidates within a Vision ticket?
My point is, even four wards with 2 or 3 councillors each elected by STV would give each voter competing councillors. Two 5-seater wards might be even better.
STV with 4 or 5 seat wards should be the preferred method IMO. If councils or school boards have 7 seats or less then the whole municipality should be one STV district. It would bring about a lot more balance on all our councils and school boards.
My understanding is that back in 2003 it was al COPE and it was all one big party than the party split and Vision was formed - so if COPE folded and became part of Vision - it would mean going full circle back to before Vision existed - the party would just have the name Vision.
BTW: What exactly were the specific issues that led to COPE splitting into two parties in the first place?
To be brutally honest, a full Vision ticket of 10 candidates would have swept the entire council. If Woodsworth had been a Vision candidate, I have no doubt she would have been elected. Same would've applied for Cadman.
This leaves COPE in an awkward position. Is it possible for COPE activists to work within Vision to counter the influence of developers? Is it possible to have a couple of more left candidates within a Vision ticket?
Vision is a rather big tent, it would seem. Several of their team (e.g. Andrea Reimer, Trevor Loke) have history with various Green parties. I don't know their candidates super-well but I think several qualify as having solid left-wing credentials. Then you also have centrist refugees from the NPA, like Cherie Payne.
It's interesting how Gregor was talking about campaign finance reforms that would reduce his own party's access to deep-pocketed developer funding. But it's really a matter of making it an even playing field. Under the status quo, the NPA can spend on a massive ad blitz, and Vision needs all the help they can get to stay visible in the face of that. With reforms, Vision would lose some of that funding but the NPA would lose even more, and perhaps a group like COPE would be able to breathe better in that environment.
There could still be space down the road for a faction of Vision to split off again. Like how a faction of TEAM broke off in the 1970s (led by Harcourt).
Even in the absence of COPE, I think Gregor is open to ongoing dialogue with the left, but those who would like to oppose developers will have to work in other ways over the next few years.
The next provincial election will happen before the next municipals. I wonder how one may affect the other.
My understanding is that back in 2003 it was al COPE and it was all one big party than the party split and Vision was formed - so if COPE folded and became part of Vision - it would mean going full circle back to before Vision existed - the party would just have the name Vision.
BTW: What exactly were the specific issues that led to COPE splitting into two parties in the first place?
I'm also interested in more details. I know Mayor Campell, elected as COPE and some councillors..(who were all referred to as "COPE light" for being moderates) broke away to form Vision. So it was a right leaning split after COPE finally did really well in an election. Then COPE proposes the non-compete deal. Now COPE has been wiped out. So if COPE 're-joins' with Vision, it would likely remain a more centrist party. I find it odd that COPE proposed the non-compete as the weaker party to defeat NPA, and in the long run basically wiped themselves out.
So yes I'd also like to know more about why Campell and friends split, and why COPE led the non-compete move. Which did get rid of NPA, but also COPE when they tried it again this election....
Seems electoral reform is key to the left's future in Vancouver electoral politics.
After Larry Campbell was recruited to run as COPE's mayoral candidate in 2002, there was a lot of infighting among factions in caucus. Campbell was a centre-left federal Liberal type, while COPE had some more left and hard left councillors that he couldn't work with and didn't agree on their positions. Issues such as development, taxation, and Walmart in south Vancouver, which the harder left elements opposed on ideological grounds. Tim Louis was one of these harder left councillors.
The "Friends of Larry Campbell" was set-up, which later morphed into Vision Vancouver and the more moderate centre-left COPE councillors followed Larry Campbell.
Remember that when Mike Harcourt was mayor during the 1980's he ran as an independent rather than under the COPE banner and had several centre-left "Civic New Democrats" run on a split ticket with COPE.
Many federal Liberals as well as provincial Liberals are also involved in Vision Vancouver's organization and in this year's campaign. Even Gregor Robertson's campaign manager for the VV mayoral nomination in 2008 is a provincial Liberal and Gregor has also been touted as a federal Liberal replacement for Hedy Fry in Vancouver Centre by some.
In order to win Vancouver council, one must appeal to the broad centre and that's why Vision is successful with centre-left New Democrats and fed Libs.
In 2008, the mayoral race was as follows:
Robertson (VV): 54.4%
Ladner (NPA): 39.3%
In 2011, the mayoral race was as follows:
Robertson (VV): 53.2% (-1.2%)
Anton (NPA) : 40.2% (+.9%)
Robertson captured centre-right areas such as wealthy West Point Grey, a bit of Dunbar, Yaletown and Coal Harbour.
The real question is will VV run a full slate next time as COPE was not successful, or will it only agree to 1 or 2 council spots for COPE instead of 3 (and that includes chool board and parks board as well)?
Let's face it, VV is in bed with the development coummunity (a sore point with COPE) and major developers such as the Walls and Ian Gillespie are also major financial backers of VV.
Many federal Liberals as well as provincial Liberals are also involved in Vision Vancouver's organization and in this year's campaign. Even Gregor Robertson's campaign manager for the VV mayoral nomination in 2008 is a provincial Liberal and Gregor has also been touted as a federal Liberal replacement for Hedy Fry in Vancouver Centre by some.
If it was 2004 or 2006 i could see that...Robertson strikes me as one of those vague "progressive" types who doesn't differentiate much between NDP and Liberal and its all about who is better positioned to be in power. If in 2015 the federal Liberals are still formly imbedded in third place and the NDP is the clear alternative to the Tories - I suspect that Robertson would either run federally for the NDP in Van Centre with the eye to being a cabinet minister - or he would get a cushy jo with some global NGO. Being a back-bencher in a 30 member federal Liberal caucus would not be much of a draw to someone who had been mayor of a city.
Thanks for the run down, Centrist. I'm still curious why COPE led the push for non-compete with Vision and only got it once Robertson was the mayoral candidate (if I'm not mistaken early tries by COPE were rebuffed by Vision). If anyone has any good articles, I'd appreciate the read. I've just been doing some google searching and such, nothing outstanding in terms of analysis.
Gregor was scheduled to give an address to the federal NDP convention this summer but missed it because of post riot duties, sending Raymond Louie in his place. If Gregor moved to federal politics I think it would be as a moderate NDP type.
I would love to suggest that a COPE council refugee run against Hedy but they're all based in East Van. And they are unlikely to run provincially because all the ridings in the neighbourhoods of Cadman, Woodsworth, Aquino are already soundly NDP.
In the long view, Gregor might still be a future BCNDP leader. Obviously circumstances are not such that it'd happen anytime soon, but maybe in the next decade.
A bit of a problem with that. Again, federal Liberal senator Larry Campbell, who created Vision Vancouver, has also had discussions with Gregor about a future run in Van Centre based upon various previous media reports. Stockholm is correct, though, that the Libs are potentially dead in the water forever more and why would he attach his future political career there?
As for Gregor as a future BC NDP leader - don't bet on it. He never liked the negative role of opposition and jumped ship prior to 2009 when he was the NDP's 'star' candidate in 2005. He also caused lasting bad blood with the provincial NDP when he praised El Gordo's carbon tax, which contravened the BC NDP's position of the day.
The crowning moment for Gregor was when he enthusiastically espoused El Gordo's "Three-Peat" prior to the 2009 election, which further rankled feathers in the BC NDP caucus. People are human and they do hold grudges.
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=bba74c23-8d53-4639-9aca-5bb79127bc91
http://www.straight.com/article-212818/pop-quiz-why-gregor-robertson-lavishing-praise-gordon-campbell
BTW, while a super guy, I have never personally considered Gregor as leadership material as he can be a bit of a light-weight. Would be a good federal NDP candidate though.
It's a shame to see COPE shut out the way they were, but they brought it on themselves. Until they start choosing more credible candidates (and by-the-way this is not directed at all their candidates), in the eyes of the average voter, COPE will continue to languish on the political sidelines. It is now time for COPE to clean house, and begin to prepare for the next election, three years from now.
Centrist, Larry Campbell is somewhat of a non-entity. He's a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. And now he's a Senator, for a third party, so go figure.
Oddly enough, COPE arguably had more success (in the pre-Vision days) when it ran more 'radical', stongly-left types like Fred Bass, Tim Louis, Libby Davies and Harry Rankin, who managed to get elected in the face of NPA sweeps in the 80s and 90s. This all changed in 2002, when a mixed bag of moderates and hard-liners got elected on a combination of Larry Campbell's coattails and the Jennifer Clarke-led purge of moderates from the NPA. Although David Cadman and Ellen Woodsworth were nominally in the "COPE Classic" camp during the 2002-2005 council, they always struck me as being relatively moderate (certainly compared to people like Tim Louis and Anne Roberts), and were the only post-2002 COPE council candidates to win election.
Robertson captured centre-right areas such as wealthy West Point Grey, a bit of Dunbar, Yaletown and Coal Harbour.
Robertson seems to have actually done a bit worse in Yaletown and Coal Harbour than in 2008. His main gains came in West Point Grey / Dunbar, and a smattering of polls in the Riley Park / Sunset area.
Interesting how there was some slippage in East Vancouver to the NPA from last time. Shades of Sullivan's victory over Green in 2005:
COPE will not be a serious player as long as they don't run a mayoral candidate and as many candidates as Vision. But obviously they don't want to do that because they don't want vote splitting on the left to hand the NPA a victory by default much in the way the Harper Conservatives have won by default at the federal level.
So COPE finds itself in a no-win FPTP conundrum. Either:
- Put the interest of your party first and increase the possibility of handing City Hall to the NPA
or
- Put the interest of the "centre-left" first and increase the possibility of marginalizing the most progressive voices in Vancouver.
To solve this FPTP conundrum, IMHO, COPE should demand that Vision have a referendum on electoral reform offering the voters STV as an alternative to block voting. If Vision refuses to do so, COPE should inform Vision that they will run a candidate for mayor, and full slates for school and park board as long as Vision refuses to attempt to get rid of block voting.
It should be noted that if COPE had run a candidate for mayor in this election, all it would have taken to hand victory to Anton and the NPA would have been for the COPE candidate to have taken roughly 1 in 4 of Robertson's votes.
The chances of that are almost nil since i think there is about a 95% chance that the BC NDP wins the 2013 (or earlier) election under Adrian Dix - so it will be a looong time before that job opens up again.
Anyone know why each municiplity outside of Vancouver reports all results at once, while Vancouver reports its results poll by poll?
Victoria was the same as Vancouver; they reported one poll at a time. I'm curious now too. Certainly more exciting with the added suspense!
In Victoria, I supported David Bratzer for school board trustee but he didn't win a seat. However some of his "running mates" in a loose coaalition did and hopefully this will be enough to break the power of the olde boys.
Tom Ferris, olde boy supreme from the trustees was in shock at the result (as well he should be). Bratzer is a cop with strong views on drug legalization. The "war on drugs" is a huge failure and he wants to build the post war world.
Bratzer questioned the school board on some of their spending and selling of school land about 6 months ago. He put it in a podcast. He used very diplomatic language but even so, after listening, I was of the view that there are rats on the school board and they must be replaced by good people like Bratzer.
I remain confused about why municipal politics cannot bring themelves to use the normal political lablels like ndp conservatiive, etc. My GF in a different district had a mad rush to figure out who she wanted to vote for. If they had a simple label, she would have just voted for the ndp slate. Mabye with an exception if someone had a dodgey past.
Also, municipal elections must be lucrative, there were far more posters than there ever was in a federal or provincial election.
The SD#61 race was indeed a funny one - and simple labels simply wouldn't have worked. Peg Orcheston failed to receive an endorsement from the GVTA - when lifelong NDPers loose the BCTF's favour, does that = loosing NDP support? Oh yeah, she topped the polls.
I stumped a bit for for Bratzer and was disappointed he didn't get elected - got the impression though that quite a few teachers weren't personally thrilled with him. It's obviously a profession that has mixed feelings about probhibtion both pro and con.
On the Council level, the most vigorous competition was within NDP (and/or Green) voting ranks, with Victoria's business elite mostly sitting this race out after failing in 2008. There is an established slate for them now to support if they want in the form of Open Victoria, which ran an extremely low budget version of the NPA disaster, spending more time on Twitter than running a decent ground game it seemed.
Dean Fortin certainly had mainstream NDP support for him and his incumbent majority, but the Victoria Labour Council endorsed a number of independent progressive candidates, with Lisa Helps & Ben Isitt having terrific success, Isitt winning a strong second for CRD director. That said, all three incumbant losers (former NDP staffer Luton, MP Lynn Hunter & Green turn recent NDP member Lucas) also had VLC endorsements.
In short, the Provincial / Federal labels just wouldn't work. We need alternate methods to increase municipal civic awareness and radically improve voter turnout, and it has to start locally.
Anyone know why each municiplity outside of Vancouver reports all results at once, while Vancouver reports its results poll by poll?
Victoria was the same as Vancouver; they reported one poll at a time. I'm curious now too. Certainly more exciting with the added suspense!
Probably because there are no reporters at the election headquarters of the smaller cities.
But surely Burnaby & Surrey had reporters present as well no?
Anyone know why each municiplity outside of Vancouver reports all results at once, while Vancouver reports its results poll by poll?
Victoria was the same as Vancouver; they reported one poll at a time. I'm curious now too. Certainly more exciting with the added suspense!
Kelowna was also one poll at a time. In fact the Mayor's race turned on the final poll.
The chances of that are almost nil since i think there is about a 95% chance that the BC NDP wins the 2013 (or earlier) election under Adrian Dix - so it will be a looong time before that job opens up again.
Just remember, you're talking about a party with a record of 3 for 19 since becoming Official Opposition.
But surely Burnaby & Surrey had reporters present as well no?
We have bi-weekly local newspapers but no on air individual media outlets. Frankly listening to the MSM coverage of the issues you would think that Vancouver was the only major municipality in the Lower Mainland. I'd bet close to 90% of the coverage was about that election. There are a lot of issues at play in Metro Vancouver but unfortunately one would get the impression that the race involving 25% of the voters is the only one that matters.
"The City of Vancouver has only four percent of Metro Vancouver’s land, but over a quarter of the population and over a third of the jobs in the region. "
Anyone know why each municiplity outside of Vancouver reports all results at once, while Vancouver reports its results poll by poll?
But surely Burnaby & Surrey had reporters present as well no?
We have bi-weekly local newspapers but no on air individual media outlets. Frankly listening to the MSM coverage of the issues you would think that Vancouver was the only major municipality in the Lower Mainland. I'd bet close to 90% of the coverage was about that election. There are a lot of issues at play in Metro Vancouver but unfortunately one would get the impression that the race involving 25% of the voters is the only one that matters.
"The City of Vancouver has only four percent of Metro Vancouver’s land, but over a quarter of the population and over a third of the jobs in the region. "
Is this surprising or something?
For one, all of the other large municipalities like Burnaby, Surrey and Richmond had boring races where the incumbent won in a landslide.
For another, they're suburbs, so it isn't as if the issues are going to be particularly "sexy" compared to the central city. Media never wants to talk about "mundane" issues like land use planning, affordable housing, or property tax burdens when they can talk about flashy, easy to cover issues, like the riot, or Occupy Vancouver or Bike Lanes, which are only in Vancouver.
Additionally, this is flippant sounding, but the region is called Metro Vancouver, not Metro Surrey, or Metro Burnaby, etc. While I'm sure a majority of citizens in each individual municipality identify with their own municipality, I'm sure there's a strong minority who see themselves as 'Vancouverites' regardless of where in the Lower Mainland that they live.
Burnaby is in the suburbs. LOL
Sorry buddy it was the suburbs in the 1930's not in this millennium.
The MSM media does a piss poor job of covering municipal elections was my point. I guess you liked the coverage. To each his own.
I didn't know that we lived in Metro Burnaby. Thanks for correcting me.
Besides, from a strictly urban planning perspective, Burnaby is most definitely suburban. It's an 'inner suburb' and not exurban, but it's still suburban. Heck, most of Vancouver proper is still suburban from a technical standpoint.
. . . from a strictly urban planning perspective, Burnaby is most definitely suburban. It's an 'inner suburb' and not exurban, but it's still suburban.
Stats Can says it's well within the Vancouver Urban Area
I'm talking about the definitions of urban, suburban and exurban. Not what's part of the region.
If you're using municipalities that are a part of the region as the definition of urban then you may as well say that Maple Ridge, which according to your link is "well within the Vancouver Urban Area", is also urban. Or so is Langley. So I'm not entirely sure what the point of that link was, as it relates to definitions.
Though IIRC, you consider municipalities of 5,000 people to be "urban", as they are defined that way by Stats Canada. That said, Stats Canada does not differentiate between 'urban', 'suburban', 'exurban' and 'rural' areas. Only between urban-ized (i.e. developed) and rural areas (i.e. undeveloped areas - assuming they have less than 5,000 people).
I'm talking about the definitions of urban, suburban and exurban. Not what's part of the region.
If you're using municipalities that are a part of the region as the definition of urban then you may as well say that Maple Ridge, which according to your link is "well within the Vancouver Urban Area", is also urban. Or so is Langley. So I'm not entirely sure what the point of that link was, as it relates to definitions.
Though IIRC, you consider municipalities of 5,000 people to be "urban", as they are defined that way by Stats Canada. That said, Stats Canada does not differentiate between 'urban', 'suburban', 'exurban' and 'rural' areas. Only between urban-ized (i.e. developed) and rural areas (i.e. undeveloped areas - assuming they have less than 5,000 people).
Stats Can defines Census Metropolitan Areas as the regional definition, so if you click on that button you will see it indeed includes all of Maple Ridge. However, the "urban area" map I linked to shows only the urban portion of Maple Ridge.
Stats Can defines "urban area" as an area with urban population density, with at least 1,000 population. My own preference is to define "urban" as an urban area with at least 50,000 people. This is also a component of Stats Can's definition of a Census Metropolitan Area: it includes the suburbs of an urban area with a core population of at least 50,000. So if you play with the map I linked to, you will see Abbotsford has an urban area with 138,986 people, and a CMA with 159,020 people. Chiliwack, however, is only a "Census Agglomeration" (not a CMA) because, even though its urban core has 59,453 people, the full area has only 80,892 people (less than the criterion of 100,000). Neither Abbotsford nor Chiliwack are part of the Vancouver CMA because of technical definitions you can find on the Stats Can site having to do with how many people drive to work where. Exurbs.
http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2006/ref/dict/geo009a-eng.cfm
However, areas of urban density, with populations between 1,000 and 50,000, which Stats Can calls "urban areas" (resulting in their statement that 80% of Canadians live in urban areas), are not "rural" either. They are small urban, or small-town. When someone says "rural" in Ontario, it usually turns out they mean "rural and small-town."
Besides, from a strictly urban planning perspective, Burnaby is most definitely suburban. It's an 'inner suburb' and not exurban, but it's still suburban. Heck, most of Vancouver proper is still suburban from a technical standpoint.
Please provide links to the discipline and its definitions that you are relying on for this definitive statement. Burnaby has its own businesses and like many paerts of the urban core of the Lower Mainland workers commute to Burnaby to earn a living. The city's employment is no more tied to Vancouver than it is to Richmond or New West. The bedroom community for Howes Street and the downtown business crowd, who don't live in the west of Vancouver, live in North and West Vancouver.
HistoryAt incorporation, the municipality's citizens unanimously chose to name it after legislator, speaker, Freemason and explorer, Robert Burnaby, who had been private secretary to Colonel Richard Moody, the Colony of British Columbia's first land commissioner in the mid-19th century.[1] In 1859, Mr. Burnaby had surveyed the freshwater lake near what is now the city's geographical centre; Moody chose to name it Burnaby Lake.
In the first 30 to 40 years after its incorporation, the growth of Burnaby was influenced by its location between expanding urban centres of Vancouver and New Westminster. It first served as a rural agricultural area supplying nearby markets. Later, it served as an important transportation corridor between Vancouver, the Fraser Valley and the Interior and continues to do so. As Vancouver expanded and became a metropolis, it was one of the first-tier bedroom community suburbs of Vancouver itself, along with North Vancouver and Richmond. Burnaby is now a mature, integrated community, which is centrally located within a rapidly growing metropolitan area. Burnaby's characteristic has shifted over time from rural to suburban, to urban.
[edit]Geography and land useBurnaby occupies 98.60 square kilometres (38.07 sq mi) and is located at the geographical centre of the Metro Vancouver area. Situated between the city of Vancouver on the west and Port Moody, Coquitlam, and New Westminster on the east, Burnaby is further bounded by Burrard Inlet and the Fraser River on the north and south respectively. Burnaby, Vancouver and New Westminster collectively occupy the major portion of the Burrard Peninsula. The elevation of Burnaby ranges from sea level to a maximum of 370 metres (1,200 ft) atop Burnaby Mountain. Due to its elevation, the city of Burnaby experiences quite a bit more snowfall during the winter months than nearby Vancouver or Richmond. Overall, the physical landscape of Burnaby is one of hills, ridges, valleys and an alluvial plain. The land features and their relative locations have had an influence on the location, type and form of development in the city.
Burnaby is home to many industrial and commercial firms. British Columbia's largest (and Canada's second largest) commercial mall, the Metropolis at Metrotown is located in Burnaby. Still, Burnaby's ratio of park land to residents is one of the highest in North America, and it maintains some agricultural land, particularly along the Fraser foreshore flats in the Big Bend neighbourhood along its southern perimeter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnaby
Here are my definitions via a link too.
People seem to be confusing the adjective urban with the noun urban by claiming the noun 'urban area' the same as the adjective 'urban' as in a type of development. So perhaps these definitions are better.
Central City: The central city or core city is the municipality in an urban area or metropolitan area that emerged historically as the most prominent in the urban area. Almost without exception, the name of the core city is also shared with the urban area and the metropolitan area.
The Urban Core: Generally the urban core or the inner city is in the central city. Sometimes the urban core includes adjacent municipalities that developed during the same period as the core city. For example, Frederiksburg is a part of the core of the Copenhagen urban area, L’Hospitalet is a part of the core of the Barcelona urban area, and Cambridge is a part of the core of the Boston urban area core.
These two are 'urban' in the sense of an adjective.
Suburb: Collectively, the suburbs are all of the continuous urbanization that extends beyond the core city (all of the urban area except the historical core municipality and other adjacent historical municipalities). A specific suburb can be an individual municipality or community in the suburbs. For example, the cities of Evanston and Oak Park are suburbs of Chicago. In the London area, municipalities that are outside the Greater London Authority, but inside the greenbelt are suburbs, such as Epsom and Ottershaw (the London urban area is within the green
belt).
This is 'suburban' in the sense of an adjective.
Exurban: Exurban refers to non-rural development that is within a metropolitan area, but outside the urban area. There are two types of exurban development:
Exurb: An exurb is a municipality (or a community) or urban area in a metropolitan area that is separated by rural territory from the principal urban area. For example, DeKalb and Kankakee are exurbs of Chicago. The urban areas that are within the London metropolitan area, but outside the greenbelt, are exurbs, such as St. Albans and Milton Keynes.
Low Density Exurban Development: Low density exurban development is generally large lot residential development that is not of sufficient density to be considered urban and is not agricultural.
These three are 'exurban' in the sense of an adjective.
So, Burnaby is most definitely not captured within the central city definition. It is arguably within the urban core, though I'd put it within the suburb definition. Maple Ridge is possibly captured by the suburban definition, considering continued sprawl of the urban area, but traditionally has been exurban and is definitely low density. How one defines a given municipality changes along with the pace of development.
The Urban Core: Generally the urban core or the inner city is in the central city. Sometimes the urban core includes adjacent municipalities that developed during the same period as the core city. For example, Frederiksburg is a part of the core of the Copenhagen urban area, L’Hospitalet is a part of the core of the Barcelona urban area, and Cambridge is a part of the core of the Boston urban area core.
Thanks for making my point.
Burnaby was incorporated in 1892 and is part of the urban core precisely because it has developed independently but simultaneously with the original main cites of New West and Vancouver. Vancouver and North Burnaby had integrated trolly line services over a hundred years ago and even the rail line serving the region that also began over century ago was called the Interurban.
New West is also an urban municipality and it has never been a suburb of Vancouver.
So what's your point then? That to be fair we ought to change the regional name to something else, which would give these other municipalities the recognition they deserve? Mission was incorporated in 1892 too, so I geuss it's urban. After all it's relativley adjacent to Vancouver and developed at the same time, therefore it's urban according to your reading. In fact if we want to be very literal New West was incorporated far before Vancouver, as were many other regional municipalities, so we probably should call the Metro Vancouver Metro New Westminster instead. But since we're being tedious and pedantic, I can easily point out what you've overlooked too.
Which, brings this back to your whole complaint that the municipal elections in other municipalities didn't receive as much attention as the City of Vancouver's. I don't think you can honestly argue that Burnaby has "emerged historically as the most prominent [municipality] in the [Vancouver] urban area." Nor does it meet the second criterion of being the municipality people associate with the entire region. It would be like arguing that people in Montreal ought to talk about the mayor of Laval during municipal elections there, or that people in Toronto ought to talk more about the mayor of Mississauga than they do Rob Ford. If that is your point, because these traditionally suburban cities now share characteristics as defined by the definition of 'The Urban Core', then your point is patently absurd.
Would the region simply be better served if we called it "The lower mainland"? since both Van and Northern are making legitimate statements that don't really contradict each other. GTA and Metro Van seem outdated to me.
Just like Toronto is best called "The Golden horseshoe" since arguably Hamilton should be included in the region.
All I know is that if a Vancouver school board candidate farted that was news for the Lowermainland's daily papers, but the issues that were happening in other communities were given almost no notice. Take a look just up the Valley where the whole council was replaced because of how they handled grow-op inspections. Or look at Whistler where wholesale change happpens over pay parking. Of couse if it doesn't happen in Vancouver it can't be a story worth reading.
Anyone know why each municiplity outside of Vancouver reports all results at once, while Vancouver reports its results poll by poll?
According to one of my friends in Vancouver, they use the automated ballot machines there as well. So unless she is wrong and they don't use automated ballot machines in Vancouver, there is some reason why the polling stations in Vancouver cannot post full results from these machines the moment the polls close, when polling stations in other municipalities can.
Double post
Which, brings this back to your whole complaint that the municipal elections in other municipalities didn't receive as much attention as the City of Vancouver's. I don't think you can honestly argue that Burnaby has "emerged historically as the most prominent [municipality] in the [Vancouver] urban area." Nor does it meet the second criterion of being the municipality people associate with the entire region. It would be like arguing that people in Montreal ought to talk about the mayor of Laval during municipal elections there, or that people in Toronto ought to talk more about the mayor of Mississauga than they do Rob Ford.
Apples and oranges. Burnaby elections are to Vancouver City elections as Scarborough or North York elections used to be to pre-amalgamation Toronto City Council elections. And yes, they often deserved as much attention, and often didn't get it.
However, Toronto (the mega-city) is to Mississauga as Metro Vancouver (the Greater Vancouver Regional District) is to Abbotsford.
Montreal, Laval and Longueuil are intermediate cases, because Quebec has a different structure, as if the whole Lower Mainland had a regional government:
the CMM (Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal) is administered by a 28-member Council composed of the following individuals:
the mayor of Montreal and thirteen persons designated by the agglomeration of Montréal from among the members of the council of Montréal and the councils of the other municipalities located within the agglomeration;
the mayor of Laval and two persons designated by the council of that city from among its other members;
the mayor of Longueuil and two persons designated by the agglomeration of Longueuil from among the members of the council of Longueuil and the councils of the other municipalities located within the agglomeration;
four mayors designated from among the mayors of the municipalities located both within the CMM and a Regional County Municipality (RCM) in the North Shore of Montreal, as follows:
the City of Mirabel and the RCM of Deux-Montagnes, together, designate one member;
the RCM of Thérèse-De Blainville designates one member;
the RCM of Les Moulins designates one member;
the RCM of L'Assomption designates one member.
four mayors designated from among the mayors of the municipalities located both within the CMM and a Regional County Municipality (RCM) in the South Shore of Montreal, as follows:
the RCM of Roussillon designates one member;
the RCM of Marguerite-D'Youville designates one member;
the RCM of La Vallée-du-Richelieu and the RCM of Rouville, together, designate one member;
the RCM of Beauharnois-Salaberry and the RCM of Vaudreuil-Soulanges, together, designate one member.
Underneath that is the City of Montreal, which is (after de-merger) slightly comparable to the City of Vancouver.
In between is the Montreal Agglomeration Council, a little like Metro Vancouver, except they use weighted votes:
The agglomeration council, which came into existence on January 1, 2006, is headed by the mayor of Montréal and consists of 31 elected officials representing all the municipalities on the island of Montréal, specifically:
The mayor of Montréal
15 members of Montréal’s city council
14 mayors of reconstituted municipalities (L'Île-Dorval and Dorval have one representative)
An additional representative from Dollard-Des Ormeaux (because of the size of its population), selected by the mayor of Dollard-Des Ormeaux.
The agglomeration is structured democratically. The mayor names 15 elected officials to the agglomeration council, who continue their terms as city councillors. The city council determines the direction that elected officials take as part of the agglomeration council. The same goes for mayors of reconstituted cities, whose respective city councils determine the orientations of their work with the agglomeration council.
Montréal’s mayor and city councillors hold around 87 per cent of the votes on the agglomeration council, while the mayors of reconstituted cities hold around 13 per cent. These percentages are proportional to the respective demographic weight of each of the cities on the island of Montréal.
So what's your point then?
Actually it hasn't changed since I made it above and quite frankly I can't figure out why you are arguing about it. You got it wrong!!! Burnaby is not a suburb of Vancouver. Just because you can't see the difference between the urban core and Abbotsford is not something I can change. If you don't believe me for whatever reason you should believe Wilf.
Frankly listening to the MSM coverage of the issues you would think that Vancouver was the only major municipality in the Lower Mainland. I'd bet close to 90% of the coverage was about that election. There are a lot of issues at play in Metro Vancouver but unfortunately one would get the impression that the race involving 25% of the voters is the only one that matters.
Was there a bigger ballot issue than the Spetifore lands? How was the coverage? How did it compare to chickens in Vancouver?
I don't think that elections in other major municipalities, except possibly Surrey, are worthy of as much attention because frankly their issues aren't all that interesting, diverse or important. Burnaby may not be simply a mall, SFU and a bunch of houses anymore, but to claim that Metrotown is akin (in importance, influence, etc) to Downtown Vancouver is absurd.
In central cities you usually have clashes of economic classes and cultures that you don't have to the same degree in such a confined space outside of these areas. There are also other issues like gentrification, where the central city becomes just as exclusive as 'elite neighbourhoods' like the British Properties or Shaughnessy, that aren't happening to the same degree in Metrotown but obviously are in the West End, Fairview and Mount Pleasant all of which are central city neighbourhoods. To further expand upon this point, if one looks at the rennoviction crisis in the West End and the massive jump in average rental costs, one can see that. Especially if you compare that to average wages, which aren't all that different across the region, thus making the issue more acute in Vancouver. I'm not saying it doesn't exist elsewhere, just that it's more acute here hence worthy of more attention in highlighting the affordability crisis.
At the same time as this is happening, the central city tends to act as a dumping ground, where most of the social services more marginalized people depend on are located, so as to keep them away from the 'good' citizens in the rest of the region. This, in turn, leads to these neighbourhoods being starkly divided between rich and poor with an ever decreasing (proportional) population of working and middle class people.
Also, the central city is where most regional attractions are, hence it draws the biggest number of visitors, workers and residents to use such facilities putting a greater tax burden on the residents of Vancouver than it does the residents of Burnaby, Richmond, etc. One can't argue that there's an equivalent movement of people coming downtown for Canucks games, as there is people going to Coquitlam to watch some BCJHL team play? Or that there's an equivalent movement of people going downtown to use the Vancouver Public Library as there are going from Vancouver to Burnaby, Richmond, etc? Or that there's an equivalent number of people from outside Vancouver going to use Stanley Park and other municipal parks and community centres as there are going from Vancouver to Burnaby to use Deer Lake Park and other municipal parks and community centres?
Besides, since when has the MSM been fair, or why should anyone expect it to be? After all it's a business and what exactly is interesting or profitable about covering a mayoral race where the mayor wins with over 60, 70 or even 80 percent of the vote? Not that I'm saying that the MSM even covered these issues, when there where Chickens, Occupations and Riots to focus on. Just that the substantive issues at least are more interesting from a central city perspective.
Long thread. See y'all in three years?