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COPE dumps David Cadman from Council slate
September 19, 2011 - 3:38am
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Story in the Georgia Straight here.
The three COPE council candidates will be incumbent Councillor Ellen Woodsworth, former Councillor Tim Louis, and newcomer R.J. Aquino.
I must say that I, for one, am quite disappointed by this outcome.
That is dissapointing, David Cadman was a pretty solid councillor.
As for Tim Louis, I lost a lot of respect for him over his role as the Larry Campbell of the left during the COPE civil war when they managed to piss away a solid victory in 2002, to allow Sam Sullivan and his horde of barbarians to come to power in 2005. What both sides of that debate forgot, and what the left seemed to learn for 2008, is that unity and discpline is somewhat important.
So, I'm not particularly sure that I'd like to see Tim Louis back on council. If the ratio is 7 Visionistas to 3 COPEsters I might "throw away" my vote by voting for a Work Less Party candidate or something like that instead of Louis. Afterall, I do like their proposals, even if they have no chance whatsoever of winning and even if it does mean that another NPA gadfly has a chance of getting in (though I'm not sure the next council will be as lopside in favour of the centre-left - but it could easily be considering the nature of the electoral system).
My thoughts exactly.
..cadman leaves a hole.
... Cadman seemed a huge advocate for the environment, my thoughts are why leave politics? why not run for an NDP nomination provincially? there he would have much more influence on policy and would be a huge green voice within the caucus. David, please rethink! the BCNDP could use you
How old is Cadman? I can't find that info. But I think there's a certain point in political life where, if you have to step aside, you may as well retire.
As for Louis... sometimes I like loud, outspoken politicians. Sometimes I don't. Help me understand - is he the kind of loud voice I *do* or *don't* want on city council?
On some level I am tempted to reserve a spare vote for Adriane Carr. But only if I can purge the memory of everything she's done in the last 12 months. She had a dishonest election team in Vancouver Centre, the Greens have hopped onto an anti-wifi bandwagon, and now she's tacitly working with the NPA. I had so much respect for her before all that went down.
I didn't know Adriane Carr was running for City Council. I have heard rumblings of some sort of Green/NPA alliance but then again I know Vision was trying to broker some sort of deal with them as well.
The good news is all three of COPE's candidates are electable. I have a lot of respect for David and his hard work on the environment for many years. But I also like real democratic races in nomination battles. COPE is a democratic party and David didn't campaign hard enough and failed to sign up new members. Such is party politics but democracy is still a good thing. The report I heard said his wife was very happy since she is already retired.
It would depend on the type of council that is being elected. He's a great opposition politician, because he's good at raising the profile of an issue, critiquing his opposition and fighting for his position. He's a terrible governing politician, partially because his strengths lead to an inability to compromise or play within the bounds of a team that spans left leaning-liberals to democratic socialists. Even ham fisted autocrats (in a democracy at least) know that they need to compromise sometimes (or at least appear to) so as to get the balance of what they want and move their agenda ahead. He lacks this skill and subtlety, which is what I think helped contribute to the corrosive implosion of COPE during the 2002-2005 period (though I blame Larry Campbell a little more for that).
As for Carr, that's interesting. Though I've never been all that impressed with her. I was thinking of voting for someone along the lines of Ben West, though I think he's not involved with the Work Less Party anymore. Anyhow, I'll give it some thought.
Ben West left the muni Greens in June:
http://www.straight.com/article-401362/vancouver/greens-lose-exchair-ove...
And Carr's nomination is mentioned here:
http://www.straight.com/article-458311/vancouver/hamilton-condemns-green...
I was at the meeting to support Tim Louis. I think that for many of us, there was no ill will towards Cadman at all. We just were worried that the Rankin legacy that Tim reflects was in serious peril within COPE. As discipline and talking points continue to be overvalued on the left, the continued exclusion of Tim was, in my view, a greater risk to our movement than the loss of Cadman.
It is foolish to follow the news media in their attempt to argue that this constituted some kind of repudiation of Cadman and his politics. He lost for three reasons: (a) he wasn't as organized in his campaign for renomination as those who won; (b) his slate of candidates was on a collision course with a group of people mobilized to support Tim by effectively shutting that group's supporters out of candidate nominations and executive positions; (c) his slate of candidates chose to back an agreement that only had space for three COPE council nominees.
As far as I could tell, not a soul in the room had a bad word to say about Cadman, with the possible exception of my mother, who had been on the joint COPE-Green slate with him in 1999. None of us voted against him. We just voted for the three best candidates.
Well it'll be interesting to see what happens in the election. If you ask someone within Vision who to vote for, they will tell you the party line is to support the full Vision-COPE slate. If you ask that same person who they are personally voting for, a significant number will tell you they're dropping Tim Louis.
I think I should have an opportunity to see him in public prior to the election, before I decide for sure. And if I do drop him, I'll have to give some thought on what (if anything) to do with the 10th vote... fringe candidate? Pick one solitary member of the NPA that I can muster some respect for? Green?
Most municipalities allow you to vote for less than the number of seats. It is what I do when I find some candidates in a party that I don't support even though I support their running mates.
I'm not at all surprised. Fortunately that group is less than 500 people who are spending their time running a campaign that endorses Louis.
Why would you vote for Carr, who pulled the Greens out of their alliance with Vision and has proceeded to assiduously pursue an alliance with the NPA to the point of driving away several progressive activists? How is she a better choice for a Vision supporter than Tim?
Is there anything you oppose about Tim's policies? How do they stack-up against Vision's pro-bike free market capitalism?
I think the concern a lot of people have (myself included) is that Tim Louis has made it very clear he wants to put an end to the COPE-Vision alliance and I have no doubt that if he is elected, he will do whatever he can to achieve that goal. We may very well then have a situation similar to the 2002-2005 council, where the centre and left vote is divided among warring factions, which will only ultimately benefit the NPA. Actually, it would be even worse, because unlike 2005 where COPE and Vision agreed on a split ticket and a single mayoral candidate (with all COPE council candidates being defeated, except - ironically - David Cadman), as I understand it if Louis and his group had their way, COPE would run a full slate of 10 council candidates and a mayoral candidate.
Actually Stuart, I think you're wrong about how Louis comes off to people. As Ghoris pointed out the only COPEster who was re-elected in 2005 was David Cadman. Ellen Woodsworth was barely re-elected in 2008. I think it's far more than '500' or so Vision members who will decide to vote for much of the Vision slate, maybe even a COPEster or two and drop someone like Louis. Besides, isn't the Vision membership something like 10-15K anyways?
Well as I said, I'd like an opportunity to see Tim Louis in public.
As it stands I am uncomfortable with someone who could destabilize the alliance. Frankly I think if anyone in COPE is serious about ending a COPE-Vision alliance, they should be advocating for electoral reform. The "first ten past the post" system is barely democratic. And with three parties, a FPTP ward system would also likely lead to distortions. I think a ranked STV-style vote would produce much fairer results. But maybe not at-large because then you have to rank 30+ candidates on one sheet!
My ideal would perhaps be to divide Vancouver into 3-5 "big wards" with 3 or more council seats each. Within each ward, any party could run a full slate and independents would also have a chance. So maybe my ward would have 3 candidates each from the NPA, COPE, Vision, Greens, Work Less, etc. I would rank as many candidates as I want to in the order I prefer. Let's say COPE is only fractionally popular in my ward, but I still put all the COPE candidates on top. In that case, the less popular candidates will drop off and their votes will transfer. If there is enough support for one COPEr after the transfers, they will be elected. If there isn't enough, the transfers continue, and then my votes would switch to Vision candidates or whoever else I choose. And I suppose the mayor could be chosen by instant runoff.
The end result is, COPE and Vision (and Greens) get to agree on certain policy issues, disagree on others, and compete democratically without a risk of "vote splitting". If there are too many candidates between COPE and Vision compared to votes, the system will see those votes coalesce on a smaller number of candidates who can get elected.
But once members voted in favour of the alliance, he stated he was on board with that decision and would campaign on that basis. I know because that was a concern of mine. I think we need the alliance this time and asked him directly and personally about that in my correspondence with him prior to the meeting.
There has never been a plan for COPE and Vision to caucus together. Woodsworth and Cadman did not vote in lock-step with Vision last time and I don't expect that whoever we elect this time will do so either. From 1980-86 under Harcourt, it was the same deal. He and the other NDP-affiliated members governed by voting with the COPE caucus on some things and the NPA caucus on others. COPE has never been an NDP shill party and we shouldn't aspire for it to become one.
Tim Louis and the left wing of COPE have never supported running a full slate. I believe their proposal was to run 5 or 6 candidates if we pulled out of the alliance with Vision. Anyway, the number of candidates COPE runs and which parties COPE works with in 2014 will be determined by a vote of the general membership, not by the party's caucus. And who knows what the political environment will be by then. As far as I can tell, by then, the Vision could basically BE Philip Owen's NPA, given the way it has effectively absorbed the Liberal Party of Canada in Vancouver.
How did I say he comes off to people?
There's some selective reporting! Tim was one of two COPE council candidates elected in 1999. In 2005, when he was defeated, he still placed ahead of Woodsworth. In 2008, COPE didn't renominate him so you can't hold his non-election by Vancouverites against him there. Tim also was re-elected to Parks Board three times from 1990-96. His electoral track record is excellent.
Party members in COPE and Vision will, overwhelmingly, vote the slate their parties endorse. It is a small number of core activists who are going to alter their voting based on petty resentments about specific candidates. I expect this group to be over-represented on rabble but I do not think it is party activists in any of the three parties who account for the main discrepancies in results between candidates. That, I would suggest, has far more to do with effective campaigning and media coverage.
If "destabilize the alliance" means COPE voting differently from Vision, then no COPE candidate who put their name forward would be acceptable to you. Cadman and Woodsworth voted against Vision and Woodsworth reminded us of that in her nominating speech.
If "destabilize the alliance" means people proposing to COPE members that we pull out of the alliance, again, this is unavoidable because such a move can be easily made by prominent party members who are not elected to civic office.
More importantly, I think it is important to see just how much common ground we have with Vision on a policy basis. I supported an alliance for this election but I do not favour a permanent alliance because I can easily see Vision continuing its rightward drift and becoming the kind of party the NPA was under Campbell and Owen: a broad centre-right coalition that includes moderate New Democrats like Nancy Chiavario and Gordon Price. Don't think it can't happen, expecially if the NPA gets decimated again.
Agreed! That position is pretty much identical to my own.
This is the system designed and advocated by Paul Tennant (UBC - Poli Sci) and Julian West (VIU - Math). It's the best electoral reform proposal I've ever seen for Vancouver. Are you aware of it? I'd be happy to send you a copy.
Feel free to post a link. It's the same idea as any STV system but implemented on a civic basis. I particularly like that it would give independents a fair shot. And once parties stop fighting over how to win advantage in a distorted system, they can actually be debating issues. You can have two competing candidates who agree on 85% of their platforms, and never have to shut down the debate with fears of vote splitting.
The more seats in an STV riding the closer the results are to proportional. I think municipally 5 would be a good number. For Vancouver I would think that 3 ridings with 5 each would be great. While that is an increase I'd prefer having more elected counsellors to watch over the public interest.
Thanks for those clarifications of Tim Louis' position on the COPE-Vision alliance, Stuart. I will obviously have to re-think my position.
Although you refer to Mike Harcourt as "NDP-affiliated" during his time as Mayor, wasn't he technically an independent, and before that a member of TEAM? (TEAM, I gather, was similar to Vision - a sort of 'rainbow coalition' of reformists, centrists and moderate lefties.)
True, there is the proportionality argument, but somehow 5 wards of 3 seats just seems to sit better with me. Less names to rank, and more ability for the voter to actually meet their full field of candidates and differentiate among them.
Frankly I am on the fence about municipal parties anyway. The at-large system and the plurality mayoral vote make them much more necessary, but I would not mind seeing them end up with a smaller role in a reformed system. Three seats in a ward is still enough under STV to guarantee that any candidate who can coalesce 25%+1 of the ward's first and transferred votes will get a voice on Council.
Despite Toronto's mayoral result, I do like the absence of political parties on council, as the free agents can keep an irresponsible mayor in check.
I've lived in Toronto and found its municipal politics to be in all ways inferior to Vancouver's. It's not that Toronto doesn't have municipal parties; Toronto has the system that existed in Victoria for a long time: underground municipal parties. A covert party system is in all ways inferior to an accountable party system. It lacks open nominating processes and is confusing and opaque to voters and encourages candidates to misrepresent their affiliations and ideologies. In Toronto, contesting the local NDP candidate means splitting the vote in a general election instead of hashing-out issues at a nominating meeting. And without party discipline, a lot more favours get handed out in exchange for votes on things like the budget, kind of like the US Senate.
That's why Toronto's municipal voter turnout is 50% lower than Vancouver's on average. Our voting system may be less fair but more people turn out because they at least understand what is going on and can find ways to become engaged in the process.
I've been trying to find that Vancouver Sun Op/Ed piece West and Tennant produced online. So far, all I've got is their original paper which was a spcific academic criticism of Kennedy Stewart's plan for municipal governance reform when he was still running IGS at SFU and had written a major report for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.
http://www.npsnet.com/cdd/PR-West.htm; The Op/Ed piece is preserved on my computer but is no longer on West's personal site where I originally obtained it.
On the flipside, in a no-party municipal system, you can have (let's say) a councillor whose political leanings largely agree with the mayor but who is not specifically loyal to the mayor's agenda. If that mayor turns out to be corrupt for reasons unrelated to ideology, the councillor won't have to be punished by association.
Thank you for that link. It was a very interesting read. Also intriguing to read the description of Vancouver's municipal politics as it was in that era.
In Burnaby we have parties. The BCA has controlled city hall and the school board for decades. It is an NDP party sort of. A precondition to joining the BCA is a membership in the NDP but other than that it is separate party. The right has a party called Team Burnaby but they have been wonderfully incompetent at electoral politics for at least a decade. So busy fighting each other they hardly had time to take on the BCA.
If Metro Vancouver was amalgamated then Burnaby would lose its left wing government. The regional Metro Vancouver has a Mayor's board from 24 municipalities and it votes by a population weighted average. Mayor Corrigan most often gets outvoted because their are more weighted votes for right wing Mayors. It is sort of like an American presidential college in that if the Mayor of Vancouver gets elected in a close race then at the regional level the only representation is the Mayor and his/her political views. So the views of 12% of voters (the 40% plurality of the 30% who bothered to vote) who voted for a Mayor get 100% of the votes on decisions relating to regional issues including transit.
As well the main public transportation infrastructure is under the control of self perpetuating appointed boards. The airport authority , the port authority, the transit authority including highways and byways are all run by business types who have no connection to any democratic process. The people of Beijing have as much say over transportation infrastructure as the people of Metro Vancouver.
Stuart's experience in Toronto is similar to the experience I had in Winnipeg - no formal political parties, but 'underground' alliances of pro-development/Conservative/pro-business/right-wing Liberals on one side and labour/NDP/green/urbanist/eft-wing Liberals on the other side. We also had basically 'pro-Mayor' and 'anti-Mayor' groupings. The problem was that many people did not pay much attention to their councillor's actual voting record so you had super-NDP areas (downtown, the West End, the North End, Seven Oaks, Transcona, etc) voting for very right-wing, reactionary councillors. I am a big fan of municipal political parties because it ensures that candidates commit to a common platform (so people know what they are getting), and provides the party discipline necessary to push that platform through (reducing the amount of US Senate-style "horse trading" that is required). In the last election, the lack of party discipline in the nomination process also worked to hand a 'safe' NDP/left seat in Elmwood to a Conservative because there were two "NDP-affiliated" candidates.
Although I see the weaknesses of the at-large system, in my opinion it is vastly superior to having one-member wards. Again, my experience in Winnipeg is that the ward system tends to create a dysfunctional council - every decision is about "what's in it for my area" as opposed to "is this good for the City as a whole". Councillors, rather than looking out for the interest of the whole City, end up just being ward-heelers. You also end up with the suburban councillors voting the interests of the burbs, which are usually diametrically opposed to the interests of the inner city, and so the "donut-ization" of Winnipeg continues apace.
I voted against wards in the plebiscite, but I would strongly consider supporting an STV-style system along the lines of what is being mooted above. My only concern would be, again, if there are too many STV seats, will we have the kind of fractioning of council on geographic lines that I would like to avoid.
I can't dispute anything in the above post. But I would ask the question: would wards really produce the level of dysfunction they do in Winnipeg and Toronto if those cities had party systems? I would tend to believe they would not. The parochialism, I think, arises not so much from single-member constituencies as from the lack of coherent debate and low turnout that covert party systems produce.
I think amalgamation is death to diversity in large urban areas. I would like to see an STV type of system for Burnaby but given the great government we have had for 30 years it is not a subject I raise often. Ruling parties don't advocate changing an electoral system that is working to its advantage. But most of all I want to have a truly local government not a regional one. Wards are no substitute for a separate municipality.
I'm not a fan of further municipal amalgamation anywhere except possibly Greater Victoria. Again and again, the "efficiencies" associated with amalgamation fail to materialize.
Are you thinking of specific elections in BC that I'm not? I can't recall this ever being a problem here, with the possible exception of Seiko Jack's allies in 1980. But even supposing it were a problem, is it really worth cutting voter turnout by 33% in order to solve it?
No I wasn't thinking of BC at all. I was just thinking about how councillors in Toronto have the space to be evaluated independently of whether their politics were aligned with an unpopular outgoing mayor.