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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.
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 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!
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.
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.
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.