Graphic courtesy of Christina Gower’s Municipal Elections October 2018 Facebook group
Vancouver Municipal Election | Transcendence & the Holy Trinity
Part 2: The Way of Out of the Misery of Our Town’s 2018 Civic Election Political Porn
In 2008, at the end of a contentious, strike-and-lockout prone Mayor Sam Sullivan Vancouver Non-Partisan Association civic administration, where his own party rejected him, before voters got a chance to do so, running Councillor Peter Ladner instead as the NPA Mayoral candidate in 2008, so dispirited was the electorate that on election day only 30.79% of eligible voters came out to the polls to cast a ballot, while 69.21% yawned.
Three years later, in 2011, a whopping 34.57% of Vancouver’s voters made it to the polls, while 65.43% of Vancouver’s eligible just stayed at home or spent the day lollygagging around on voting day, effectively saying to the candidates “to hell with you.” No one ever said life in civic politics is easy.
Things were really looking up when it came time to head to the polls in 2014 to re-elect a majority Vision Vancouver municipal government, an easy-to-follow and hard-fought campaign, that pitted the bike-riding, Happy Planet drinking voters against those dastardly bike-lane hating degenerates (but not really) in the Vancouver Non-Partisan Association. Oh woe is us. All neat and tidy, good vs evil, making it incredibly easy for voters to cast their ballot. And they did, in record numbers: of the 411,741 registered Vancouver voters, there were a record 181,707 ballots cast, putting the voter turnout in 2014 at 44.13%! Hallelujah, and love a duck.
What do the voting figures above mean for the 2018 Vancouver civic election? In the era of Trump, it’s hard to know. The rightist backlash we wrote about yesterday … had our friend Dave Pasin weighing in, who posted the following on Twitter …
“You miss the point. It’s not about nimbyism or the fear of a hyperbolic hell hole. The real issue is that citizenry don’t feel they have a real say in how the city is evolving. They feel used, abused and taken advantage of by supposed morally superior leaders.”
And here we thought that’s what we were writing. Meanwhile, Dave Pasin isn’t done, adding the following Twitter comment …
“Raymond, as one who travels to the U.S. on a regular basis, the U.S. is far from the hell hole you portray. The reality of what’s actually happening is far and away from politics and hyperbolic cable shows. I have found the country to be in a good place economically, and even socially.”
Hyperbole, thy name is VanRamblings. And it will be forever thus. Since recovering from cancer, we’ve given up a lot of things — fear, anger, hubris, being mean, not appreciating Vision Vancouver — but hyperbole? Nope, we’re wed to hyperbole, like we’re kinda wed to writing in the third person (keeps an ironic distance, don’tcha know) … well, mostly, anyway.
In 2018, then, we’ve got a spitting angry electorate, or as Bill says, a voting public who “feel used, abused and taken advantage of by supposed morally superior leaders” — you know, as we wrote yesterday, the types that have helped to make Vancouver a city that has focused on …
Reconciliation with our indigenous peoples, promoting the interests of women in the workplace, making Vancouver a racism-free zone, a nuclear-free zone, a city focused on the interests of our LGBTQ and gender variant communities, which has created Vancouver as a non-gendered bathroom zone, a city concerned with the interests of vulnerable citizens, a city that — working with our federal and provincial governments — is committed to building 6,000 units of co-op housing; 4000 truly affordable rental housing units; 2,000 social housing units; while supporting the construction of 2,000 co-housing units, all over the next ten years …
Where the used and abused part that Dave writes about arises, is from a lack of consultation with residents in all 23 of Vancouver’s neighbourhoods when it comes to the decision-making by Vancouver City Council, which riles up folks like the Grandview-Woodland residents who came out to express their opposition to a new detox and treatment centre, or the 680 units of transitional modular housing, where Marpole residents came out in droves to protest the construction of transitional modular housing units in their neighbourhood, which neighbours feared would introduce vulnerable drug dependent citizens into their neighborhood, creating a safety concern.
Over the course of the past 10 years, the majority Vision Vancouver civic administration has focused its governance on social issues, and making Vancouver an environmentally forward city (which Georgia Straight editor Charlie Smith, in a Twitter response to yesterday’s VanRamblings column, identified as a critical issue to our city and our planet’s future).
For the record, be it environmental initiatives or the bike lane construction programme undertaken by our Vision Vancouver civic government, the focus on active transportation, the construction of 680 transitional modular housing units, and all and more of the social justice initiatives that Vision has championed while in power at City Hall: we think they’re important social justice and environmental initiatives — and just like 65,844,954, or 48.2% of the American population, voted for Hillary Clinton to continue along the path Barack Obama had embarked on, while only 62,979,879, or 46.1% of the American population voted for Donald Trump — call them the deplorables, as Hillary Clinton did in a fit of pique (or candour), or the “I love the under-and-uneducated voters”, as Trump referred to his barely literate followers (who wore Trump’s words like a badge of honour). Still.
No matter what Dave Pasin has written above, life has not gotten better for African American men and women, nor for any segment of the immigrant or refugee communities, nor the Dreamers, the farmers, children in under-financed schools, nor the poor, the opioid drug-addicted & the vulnerable.
In the era of Trump, license has been given to mouth and give vent to the worst inclinations and intolerant beliefs of huge segments of our population, in the U.S. and in Canada, those who feel disenfranchised and locked out, and who are bereft of hope — the battle is on, then, for the hearts and minds of this portion of the electorate, who need hope, and a sense that there is justice for them, that they’re being heard, that they’re loved
1961. Vancouver aldermen A.E. Sprott, Dr. W.B. McKechnie, F. Fredrickson, H.D. Wilson, Angus Maclnnis & former Vancouver aldermen, at a dogwood tree planting ceremony.
As progressives, as the literate and well-educated in our population, if we’re not very careful, in 2018 — for all of our good intentions — the ground that the 2018 election could be fought on is one of intolerance, hatred of the other, preservation of self-interest, and a return to a meaner time, when our majority population … well, old white men, anyway, ruled the day, and if you were a person of colour, an indigenous person, an immigrant or a refugee escaping misery, or a barely tolerated, vulnerable member of our population, you were locked out of the decision-making.
In 2016, 65,844,954 good-hearted Americans didn’t want to see a return to the days of intolerance, hatred and fear — but it didn’t quite work out for them, who now find themselves living in the intolerant world of Trump.
The Holy Trinity of Vancouver Civic Politics. Christine Boyle: Saviour
Vancouver’s civic election Holy Trinity | Sarah Kirby-Yung, Christine Boyle, Anne Roberts
The palliative in the coming civic election campaign, quite literally our non-hectoring saviour, and a charismatic voice of reason — although, at the moment, she doesn’t think she is and probably finds the notion and the writing of such to be an engagement in just a bit of hyperbole, being the humble person she is, but whether or not Ms. Boyle is ready for it, by the time late summer rolls around, it will become abundantly clear that 2018’s Vancouver civic election will become the Christine Boyle election, whether she is yet able to acknowledge it early on in her campaign for a seat on City Council, as a OneCity Vancouver candidate for office, or not.
Christine Boyle’s campaign for office offers a message of hope that speaks to the best of us, much in the same way as Barack Obama in 2008.
One of the traits we most admire in Christine Boyle — an inherent feature of her personality and how she brings herself to the world, and a trait that will serve her well on the campaign trail, in the months to come — is her humility, because hers is a voice not just of sympathy, but of empathy for every one of us, a spiritual empathy that voters will feel deep within them, and which will inform the 2018 Vancouver municipal election.
Humility, empathy in civic politics in the city of Vancouver. Unusual that. But also good, as well as engaging and transformative traits for a budding civic politician, traits that will serve her (and us) well — because it means that for even the angriest voter, for those who feel disenfranchised, abused and used, as Bill McCreery writes above, across every neighbourhood in our city, who feel unheard, have come to feel ignored and disrespected, in Christine Boyle — a United Church minister of heartening and consoling countenance — she will come to represent what can be for all of us …
Christine Boyle not only does not represent a threat to anyone, as a figure of humility, grace and compassion, she is also the embodiment of hope, her voice one of sympathy and generosity, and a preternatural wisdom.
Christine Boyle’s candidacy and the acknowledgment of the transformational role she will play in the 2018 Vancouver civic election — well, it’s a little ways off yet, for her, for the voters of Vancouver, and for her political opponents, as well. Maybe recognition will come as late as the third or fourth all-candidates meeting she attends in September, when it will become clear to Ms. Boyle, as it will to the rest of us, that she is the leader we need, hers a candidacy for office that seeks to appeal and speaks to the best of us, for all of us, Christine Boyle as the hope of our future.
Looking back at the 2015 federal election, in the early part of the federal campaign, Justin Trudeau struggled, he did not find his voice, did not say what people most needed him to say — that he was his father’s son, whose legacy for which, as he stated, he was “incredibly proud,” on that September 26th Monk debate night when Justin Trudeau first knew that he would become Canada’s 23rd Prime Minister; soon after, and within days, so did everyone else, as in the final three weeks of the 2015 federal election campaign, Justin Trudeau & the Liberal Party of Canada’s fortunes catapulted into the stratosphere, rising from 27% in the polls in the days prior to the Monk Debate, to an astounding 39.47% on election day.
Soon, very soon, Christine Boyle will find herself on that same trajectory.
For Christine Boyle is the leader we need, hers the voice of generosity of the human spirit, circumspect wisdom and prudent understanding, a candidacy for office which appeals to the best in us — a distaff and soon-to-be-beloved Tommy Douglas for the 21st century, hers a once in a lifetime candidacy that is certain to emerge in this currently nettlesome civic election season, as the hope of our future, the person who speaks for and to the rage-filled, reactive and fear-filled neighbours we see on our TV screens at night — whose concerns she will address, whose voices she will hear, and most important, on whose wishes she will act, to make ours a city for everyone, whether you live in Dunbar, the Downtown Eastside, Kitsilano or Shaughnessy, Hastings Sunrise, Grandview Woodland or the West End, Fraserview, Riley Park, Killarney, along Cambie, or in Mount Pleasant, False Creek, Marpole or West Point Grey, in any neighbourhood in our city.
As you might imagine, though, Christine Boyle will not achieve for us that which needs to be done, the affordable housing that must be built, the property taxes that need lowering, the child care centers that need to open, the children in our city who must no longer go to school hungry, the homeless and the indigent who through no fault of their own live in poverty and wont, the hollowing out of our neighbourhoods that have made some once thriving parts of our city virtual ghost communities — no, Christine Boyle is going to need help, she is going to need a comrade in arms, another transformative political figure in our city, a planner …
Sarah Kirby-Yung. A person of conscience, an idea person who knows how to think outside the box, a generational candidate, political figure and comrade, who possesses a way of speaking to the people, while not as practiced and charismatic as Ms. Boyle’s, nonetheless speaks to the heart — and much to her credit, and the good fortune of those who live in Vancouver — and to the mind, who in her tenure at Park Board achieved the near impossible in having cetaceans in captivity banned in Stanley Park — in the process thwarting Non-Partisan Association policy, and reversing a key plank in the 2014 civic election Vancouver Non-Partisan Association platform, who is wily and smart and knows how to get things done, and who will become best friends with Christine — and, no, at this point they have not met one another — and even though, supposedly, they are on the opposite sides of the political spectrum, Sarah Kirby-Yung set to become British Columbia’s Premier in the next mid-decade, while her friend-yet-still-to-be resides as Mayor in Vancouver, as one of the most beloved political figures to ever emerge in the history of Vancouver civic politics.
Anne Roberts. And then there is the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) candidate for City Council, past head of the journalism programme at Langara College — where she transformed the life of one of the people I most love in this world, a social justice warrior from the first time we met when she was just nine years of age, Justine Davidson (who just yesterday, gave me a hug — which oughta keep me going for some time now) — a former and most beloved Vancouver City Councillor, making a difference for the better in all our lives during her 2002 – 2005 tenure on Council, the parliamentarian in Vancouver civic politics’ holy trinity, who will get along with Sarah Kirby-Yung, and who Sarah will come to love, each moment Sarah and Anne spend together meant to be cherished, and who together will get things done, get those things accomplished that Christine Boyle has promised on the campaign trail, who will mentor Christine in the ways of civic governance and accomplishment, these three women about to become best friends, soon, and long, long, long into the future.
In 2018, we like NPA Mayoral nominee John Coupar just fine, and we’re pretty sure that Vision Vancouver mayoral candidates Ian Campbell and Taleeb Noormohamed are pretty good guys, and we’re downright impressed with Ben Bolliger, Brandon Yan and R.J. Aquino, candidates for Council all with OneCity Vancouver. Pretty much across the board, we’re grateful when candidates come forward to offer themselves for service in the public weal.
Fierce, accomplished women possessed of wisdom and grit will lead us into the future
But in 2018, a new era has dawned, an era where it is time for tough, psychologically healthy, exceptionally bright, capable and principled women to lead us, women who know how to work with others, know how to bring about change, and bring people — all people — along with them.
But, y’know what — just in case you haven’t been reading the news, or haven’t been following the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements as closely as you oughta have been, or maybe you were one of three or four folks across the North American continent who didn’t see that it was Patti Jenkins who made the zillion dollar grossing Wonder Woman last year. You did, you’re aware, you follow the news, you’re informed? Then tell you what, let us remind you of something you already know, in your heart & in your mind …
2018 is the year of the woman, in Hollywood at the box office, and at the voting booth in the U.S. — where at last count, 43 women of conscience defeated troglodyte white men in American by-elections over the course of the past eight months, and in our home in Vancouver in 2018, women rule, and women will rule, and come Saturday, October 20th, Vancouver’s holy trinity of women city councillors will assume control at Vancouver City Hall.
