Five months from today, on November 15th, 2014, Vancouver voters will head to the polls to elect a civic government to a four-year term in office at Vancouver City Hall. No municipal election in recent Vancouver civic electoral history will prove as critical to the vision for, and livability of, our city going forward than the current civic election campaign that is already underway.
At present, there are eight declared municipal parties in Vancouver that have announced for office, ranging from …
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Vision Vancouver, the relatively new, only 9-year old municipal political party, a breakaway party from the leftist Coalition of Progressive Electors, which had held civic power from 2002 through 2005. Vision Vancouver first elected candidates to office in 2005, and since the 2008 Vancouver municipal election have held majority power at City Hall, where Mayor Gregor Robertson, his Vision Vancouver councillors, and political eminence gris/political fixer/Chief of Staff to the Mayor, Mike Magee, have embarked on a revolutionary development plan for the city that knows no precedent in our city’s 128-year history;
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Non-Partisan Association (NPA), Vancouver’s oldest civic political party, first formed in 1937, a fiscally conservative party that many feel to be the city’s natural governing party, out of office since 2008, and (we would suggest) completely renewed and re-constituted, the only civic party than has a chance in hell of unseating the Vision Vancouver civic administration, a party that now fashions itself (and rightly so, we believe) as the New Progressive Association. In the next short while, the NPA will announce their Mayoral candidate, although general consensus is that it will be former broadcaster, journalist and current publisher-editor of Self Counsel Press, Kirk LaPointe;
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Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE), Vancouver’s second oldest political party, long the conscience of our city, a party that over the years has found broad support across the 23 neighbourhoods that constitute the Vancouver we love, a party that some feel has fallen on hard times, with a retinue of former COPE members having recently broken away to form One City Vancouver, a left-progressive party, largely dominated by provincial NDP party stalwarts, and former Green Party leader Stuart Parker and recently resigned COPE Executive member taking regular potshots at COPE. Still, if we know COPE Executive Director Sean Antrim, and Tim Louis and Tristan Markle, who count themselves among a most committed group of social activists working to change Vancouver to transform our city into a much fairer, and more just, city (and we do), there’s simply no counting COPE out in 2014 — there’s just too much on the line this time around;
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Green Party of Vancouver. Vancouver City Councillor Adriane Carr, who just squeaked into office in 2011, has done our city proud. Consistently the conscience of Vancouver City Council, the signal voice at Council and in the civic sphere representing and speaking for the interests of all Vancouver citizens, the Greens look to do well come November 15th, and based on Ms. Carr’s fine work in office this past almost three years, she will in all likelihood have coattails that will see relative political newcomers, and her Green Party of Vancouver running mates Pete Fry and Cleta Brown ascend to elected office, and a seat at the Council table, following the 2014 Vancouver civic election.
As to the remaining four Vancouver civic parties, although each of the parties is constituted of publically-minded citizens of good conscience, no one of them will come close to electing candidates to Vancouver City Council. That said, we are supportive of the aims of some of these political entities, and will in time write at length about each one of them. We realize in this first post, that our writing will be viewed by many as enigmatic — let us assure you, you will be left with no doubt in the coming months as to what VanRamblings believes are the issues of most importance to all of us as we head to the polls on November 15th, and who civic-minded citizens must consider as worthy candidates for elected office in Vancouver.
In closing, we’ll write a bit on the four remaining Vancouver civic parties …
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One City Vancouver. Migawd, do we like these folks. Even though they ain’t gonna elect anyone to Council, One City is a definite threat to elect several candidates to Vancouver’s Board of Education, and we would suggest, as well, to Vancouver Park Board. At a future date, we’ll dedicate an entire column to One City Vancouver, and write at length (and supportively) about their candidates, once they announce;
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Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver (NSV). Another group of civic-minded folks for whom VanRamblings has a great deal of time. Even though CityHallWatch is not, necessarily, the party’s journalistic arm, there are a great many NSV folks who contribute to one of Vancouver’s most critically important websites for democratic engagement. We will write about NSV, at length, at a future date;
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The Electors’ Action Movement (TEAM). Good-hearted, civic-minded folks to be sure, but sad to say, apart from nostalgic name recognition, hardly a currently effective political force in Vancouver;
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Vancouver Cedar Party. Largely a vehicle for the political ambitions of west side resident and financial analyst, Glen Chernen, you’ll likely hear a great deal from the Cedar Party in the coming months, signifying, we would suggest, much ado about not very much, a party of smoke and mirrors and anger, without much to say of consequence on the policy front. Still, between now and November, we will give Mr. Chernen, and his running mates, a forum on VanRamblings, as we will to all of the Vancouver municipal parties seeking elected office in 2014.
Well, that’s it for our first post on the upcoming Vancouver civic election.
In the coming days, VanRamblings will break news stories, and plan on providing every good reason to you to check in with us on a regular basis. Although it may take us a little while to ramp up (we’re a tad rusty, not having written in months), we promise you thorough — and, at times, pointed — coverage of Vancouver’s civic scene, in the coming months.
More tomorrow, thru til the November 15th civic election, and beyond.
