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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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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!
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.
Probably because there are no reporters at the election headquarters of the smaller cities.
But surely Burnaby & Surrey had reporters present as well no?
Kelowna was also one poll at a time. In fact the Mayor's race turned on the final poll.
Just remember, you're talking about a party with a record of 3 for 19 since becoming Official Opposition.
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.
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).