Election night, Saturday, October 20th, Councillor-elect Christine Boyle addressed her OneCity Vancouver supporters, girding them for the “fight ahead” against the forces of regression, calling on them to work with her and the progressive forces across our city in order that, together, we might build the city we need. Christine Boyle’s call was an inspiring & clarion one.
The following day, VanRamblings published a column taking Councillor-elect Boyle to task for seeming to sew the seeds of division on a Council that, we thought and we continue to believe, is far from divided, her comment on election night unworthy of what we know and believe about the candidate we relentlessly championed daily in the six month lead-up to election night.
VanRamblings has, over the course of the past week championed the notion of “post partisan councils and boards of reconciliation” — a call by VanRamblings for elected members to work across the aisle with those electeds and members of the public with whom they have differing political philosophies and perspectives, all in aid of persons of conscience coming together so as to benefit every citizen who resides in the city of Vancouver.
But for 957 votes on election night, October 20th 2018 (and the election of Ken Sim as Vancouver’s next Mayor), Councillor-elect Christine Boyle’s election night address rallying her supporters of conscience might rather have garnered the opprobrium of VanRamblings for understating the dire consequential impact of a Mayor Ken Sim, and a majority Vancouver Non-Partisan Association contingent of electeds to Vancouver City Council.
The following is what would have transpired had Ken Sim become Vancouver’s next Mayor, along with the five current NPA Councillors-elect …
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Mayor’s Advisory Board. An advisory Board to the Mayor would be struck, not unlike the advisory Board that drafted policy for Vision Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson. This NPA Board of Advisors would focus mainly on drafting policy on development, an influential and determinative, proto in-house real estate Board, if you will, as was the case with the Mayor Robertson administration. The Mayor would have input into the decisions taken the Board, but just that and no more;
- Empty Homes Tax. The Empty Homes Tax that Mayor-elect Kennedy Stewart proposes be tripled (an initiative that will find support among the “progressive” Councillor elects), under an NPA administration would be repealed, as one of the first items of business of the new Council. The Advisory Board would determine that the Empty Homes Tax was a counter-productive measure that had depressed investment in the real estate market by offshore investors in the Vancouver market. Consequent to the cancellation of the Empty Homes Tax, the initiative extant of the Advisory Board, investment in Vancouver’s real estate market would once again boom, creating tens of thousands of ‘man years’ of employment for builders and the building trades, while making hundreds of millions of dollars for developers, not to mention members of the Advisory Board. In other words, Vision Vancouver on speed;
- NPA Mayor & Council as de facto opposition to the NDP government. Mayor Ken Sim and the NPA members of Council would call out the NDP’s speculation tax (first initiated by Christy Clark’s Liberal government) for the inherent racism of the policy, which commentary Mayor Ken Sim would broadcast to the world as discriminatory, given that the tax is aimed specifically at Chinese investors he would suggest, and to a lesser extent person of colour “immigrants” from across the globe;
An NPA administration at Vancouver City Hall would also DEMAND the revocation of the provincial government’s speculation tax as a top priority, a drum they would beat until their demands had been met. An NPA administration would also call out the provincial NDP government’s so-called “school surtax” (a particular bug-a-boo for NPA Councillor-elect Colleen Hardwick), the rallies that had been held in the spring and summer opposing the provincial NDP government’s “school surtax” to look like a convivial picnic, as compared to the rallies that would be fomented by the NPA administration in office at Vancouver City Hall;
- Affordable housing. Under an NPA administration at Vancouver City Hall, citizens could forget about an NPA Mayor and Council doing anything whatsoever on the affordable housing file — it’s just not an NPA bailiwick, and an issue an NPA administration would give two hoots about. Of course, Councillors Jean Swanson, Christine Boyle and Pete Fry would rally their troops (which is to say, all persons of conscience resident in the city of Vancouver) to hold a Ken Sim-led civic administration to account — but let’s face it, if there are ideologues on the left, there are ideologues on the right. The protests of progressive elected Councillors and Vancouver citizens of conscience demanding the construction of affordable housing built on city land would fall on deaf ears among the elected NPA majority on Vancouver City Council.
All of the above only scratches the surface of the havoc that would be wreaked by a right-leaning NPA administration, which catering to their “base” would not give two hoots for the majority of Vancouver citizens.
Fanciful conjecture above? Not on your life.
Fortunately for all of us, Ken Sim was not elected Mayor on Saturday night, October 20th. The nightmare scenario above is one that the conscience-less Councillor-elect Colleen Hardwick (who possesses many good qualities, a social conscience and a commitment to equity not being among them) would have readily signed onto. Opposition to the imposition of the dictates of the NPA Advisory Board would have been led by Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung, who would have been brow-beaten (as was Kim Capri, in the Sam Sullivan administration — one of the ugliest misuses of power by a Mayor directed at a party stalwart and elected Councillor, VanRamblings has ever witnessed), as would the four other NPA Councillors. We may have a “weak Mayor” system — but as was the case with Larry Campbell and Sam Sullivan, and to a somewhat lesser degree, Gregor Robertson, the Mayor has the bully pulpit from which to exclaim, and an outsized influence over Councillors. Quite simply, that is the reality of Vancouver realpolitik.
A four year Vancouver civic political nightmare was averted on election night. Now Mayor-elect Kennedy Stewart and all members of Vancouver City Council will be afforded an opportunity to work together towards the realization of VanRamblings’ much-ballyhooed “post partisan Council of reconciliation”, working for and on behalf of all the citizens of Vancouver.
As an addendum to today’s VanRamblings column …
The past few days has proved particularly challenging for VanRamblings. For the first time in the 14½ year history of VanRamblings, senior members of one political party demanded we take down a post — a positive post in support of this party, strangely enough. Further, the writer of this blog was instructed, under penalty, to NEVER again write about two of the Councillor-elects — again, both of whom we have written positively on, as we presume will continue to be the case. Perhaps, the persons who are issuing these demands are unfamiliar with the notion of “freedom of expression.”
Although VanRamblings plans to continue our penchant for a degree of (what we hope is becoming and entertainingly engaging) hyperbole in our writing, and because we believe deeply in freedom of expression but not license, we will continue to publish positively about realpolitik in Vancouver, and write what we will about the electeds — while never deigning to publish libelous statements or pejorative commentary about our elected officials.
Detractors and those political operatives who choose to intimidate as a modus operandi, who choose monetary gain in service over integrity: yell and threaten all you want. At VanRamblings — post our battle with cancer — we’re on a mission to make a difference. Threats and intimidation, name-calling and rebuke from on high will not deter us from that which we have set about to do on VanRamblings as we post each day, as we work towards making ours a fairer and more just city and province for all of us.
