Time for some basic math on the Mayoral nomination 2018 Vancouver civic nomination front. Hey you, fine folks with OneCity Vancouver (the folks we are head-over-heels in love with this election cycle), Alison and Anna, Cara and David and Christine. Hey you, Derrick and Riaz and Maddy and Laura and Wendy (and, you too, Jean) on TeamJean — the hardest-working, best organized, most enthusiastic and focused vanguard of folks we’ve witnessed since, gosh, at least the 1970s.
And, hey you, Connie and Rider, Gary and Carol (and, you too, Justine) on the COPE train to freedom and social justice. Hey you, social justice warriors on the Vision Vancouver team, that’d be you Catherine Evans, Heather Deal & Finance Chair on Vancouver City Council, Raymond Louie. And, hey, you Pete Fry and Jacquie Miller (enjoy your freedom while the enjoying is good, cuz law school at UVIC in the fall — well, it’s gonna keep you busy!), and you, too, Mike Wiebe and Stuart Mackinnon and Janet Fraser and Estrellita Gonzalez, with the Greens — and that includes you, too, Adriane Carr Mayoral aspirant, two-term Vancouver City Councillor, your visage so lovingly captured in the warmly re-assuring photograph published yesterday in the Charlie-Smith-edited Georgia Straight.
Adriane Carr, beloved Vancouver City Councillor, expresses her interest in seeking the Mayor’s chair; her party endorses her at their recent AGM. Around the same time, former Visionista and all-around good person, Shauna Sylvester “soft launches” a campaign to become Vancouver’s next Mayor. Meanwhile, COPE thinks — whoops, first, to correct the record, we’re going to quote COPE candidate for City Council, Anne Roberts …
“Raymond, I’m not particularly worried about inaccuracies in your column last week about Patrick Condon, but I would like to set the record straight, especially when it to the comes to the involvement of others, and hear I am thinking about the reference you made concerning current COPE co-chair Connie Hubbs, that she had not met, nor was she aware of Patrick Condon prior to my raising his name with her as, perhaps, a potential “unity candidate” for Mayor, or maybe running under the COPE banner, or possibly as an independent who COPE could support.
In words of one syllable: that’s wrong.
Here are the true facts of the matter: Some months ago I e-mailed Patrick in a spontaneous moment of inspiration, after having read what I found to be an inspiring piece of journalism, a column that he’d written for The Tyee. In an e-mail I posted to him, I re-introduced myself to Patrick, who I had first met when sitting as a COPE member on City Council, when COPE held power at Vancouver City Hall, from 2002 – 2005.
In my e-mail to Patrick, I asked him if he had ever considered running for office.
Patrick replied that he indeed had been thinking of exactly that.
It turned out that he’d been talking to the Greens for the past year about running with them for a position on Vancouver City Council. I’m not sure whether Patrick is still interested in that (ed. note. Patrick may or may not be. But the Green Party folks VanRamblings has spoken with would be over-the-moon with a Patrick Condon candidacy for Vancouver City Council). In the e-mail that I posted to him, I suggested that if he could see himself running as some kind of “unity” candidate for the Mayor’s Chair, I thought it possible, perhaps even probable, that in addition to the Greens, COPE, OneCity & TeamJean might be open to a Mayoral run by him in the 2018 Vancouver municipal election.
I told Patrick that I would try to arrange some sort of meeting to discuss possibilities.
Given that Patrick was just about to set off on his sabbatical, we had just a day or two to invite interested parties. We ended up with COPE and TeamJean meeting at my house. You guessed it: Connie Hubbs — you know, COPE’s co-chair — was at that meeting, many months ago, where we all had an enlightening conversation about the city needing to take a much stronger stand on the provision of affordable — and social — housing, focusing on transportation policies for the City of Vancouver that would not only prove to be cost-effective but environmentally responsible and neighbourhood-sustaining.
We also talked about a key plank in Jean Swanson’s bid for a seat on City Council during her by-election run last year, the Mansion Tax that is already in effect — as it has been for some while — in Seattle, and various other critical issues of importance to the Vancouver electorate.
I assure you, Raymond, contrary to what you posted on VanRamblings early in your coverage of the current civic election cycle, that much prior to the meeting the group of us had a few months back with Patrick Condon, Connie Hubbs had read a significant body of work that had been written by Patrick over the years, in addition to a surfeit of academic, mainstream press, journal and other articles where he had been interviewed, contributing his thoughts on sustainable city building.
Before Connie — in her capacity as COPE co-chair — talked to the media, she had been in e-mail communication with Patrick on multiple occasions, and had on numerous occasions been a part of live Skype video conversations COPE and TeamJean were having with Patrick while he was on his sabbatical, and distant from Vancouver. Connie was anything but ill-informed. Hope this sets the record straight.
…well (continuing from above), the 50-year-strong Coalition of Progressive Electors — and, apparently, Team Jean — think (as Anne relates), “Hey, a Patrick Condon for Mayor “unity” candidacy for Mayor. Worth exploring.”
Okay, here’s where the math comes in.
Shauna Sylvester tells VanRamblings and anyone in the mainstream media who will listen, that if Adriane Carr decides to launch a bid for the Mayor’s job, she’ll close up shop on her announced, and still yet hardly energetic mayoral bid. Meanwhile, Patrick Condon has said from the outset, “If Adriane Carr decides to run for Mayor, I’ll be supporting her.”
Math time. Three possible progressive candidates for Mayor. Two prepared to withdraw: leaves one progressive candidate for Mayor: Adriane Carr.
Yippee! Hallelujah! What’s that, you say? OneCity Vancouver ain’t playin’ ball with an Adriane for Mayor candidacy. Vision, well heck, although they haven’t weighed in on an Adriane for Mayor candidacy, you can bet that both parties — all set to meet with the good, worker-and-family defending Vancouver & District Labour Council this weekend — well, OneCity and Vision will be on board with an Adriane for Mayor candidacy if that’s what the good folks — such as VDLC President, Stephen von Sychowski, who we interviewed yesterday — get around to cottonin’ onto the notion that, “Hey. Maybe, just maybe, Adriane Carr for Vancouver Mayor, running as a “unity Mayor” under the Green banner that is so important to her, maybe that’s not such a bad thing, after all. In fact, maybe that’s a good thing.”
In the meantime, Ms. Carr — if we might address you directly — we read Carlito Pablo’s interview with you in The Straight yesterday (hey, you two, Adriane and Carlito we’re talking to you, you gotta phone us at home, or on our cell, if you find yourself just plain confused about something that’s been written on VanRamblings that is concerning to you, so we can set about to “make things right”, to lessen any confusion you may be experiencing).
Okay, Adriane. Listen up and listen tight. Here’s what you told Carlito yesterday …
“If it turns out that I don’t get the support, and I end up running for Council, I love what I do at Council, and I think that I play a very key role in pushing ideas that other parties don’t at the council table”
“So either way, my hope is that I would be serving the city of Vancouver and the citizens of Vancouver. That really is my bottom line. Whether it’s as Mayor or as Councillor is going to be determined by a) the citizens themselves in terms of their support, and b) the other parties.”
VanRamblings reads a bit of fatalism in your comments to Carlito, Adriane. Seems to us that you may be thinking, Mayor? Maybe, maybe not.
VanRamblings would suggest to you, our most esteemed Councillor Carr, that it is too early, as you suggest above, to make a decision either way. Wait to see what happens at the VDLC meetings this weekend.
And, oh yeah, some advice from us: read only the good things written about you on VanRamblings — ignore the rest (really, honest, ignore the rest … clearly, the more dispiriting things that are written about you on VanRamblings are the work of a dangerous and deranged mind).
Councillor Carr, your candidacy for Mayor is not over before it’s begun. Puh-leeze (forgive us for being impolite). Even if it appears to you that it’s “over” or even that it may be over — it’s not. VanRamblings talks with everyone — believe us when we write, an Adriane Carr for Vancouver Mayor mayoral bid is far, far, far, far, far, far from over. Honest. Cross our heart & hope not to die anytime soon — been there, done that, it’s no fun.
You’re just getting started, Ms. Carr — wait for folks to rally around you, and they will, and all will be well with the world, all will come together as it is meant to, and you, Patrick Condon and Pete Fry (sorry, Mike), and Christine Boyle and two of Brandon Yan, Ben Bolliger or RJ Aquino, Catherine Evans and one of Raymond Louie or Heather Deal, the spectacularly wonderful and principled Anne Roberts and an as-yet-undecided second COPE / Team Jean candidate will ascend to Vancouver City Hall on the glorious and captivating evening of Saturday, October 20th, when a new and progressive and affordable-housing-supplying, and worker-interest-defending Mayor and Council — working with our incredibly wonderful John Horgan provincial government, and “Hey, you can make a deal with him” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — will transform Vancouver into a new Valhalla, a social justice warrior’s paradise by the sea.
Yesterday afternoon, VanRamblings was afforded the opportunity to speak with a very bright, articulate and supremely socially-skilled President of the Vancouver & District Labour Council, elected to the position in February following the retirement of the equally wonderful, socially-skilled & incredibly well-organized, Joey Hartman — who recently told VanRamblings that, from the outset of her election to the position at the VDLC, she had let everyone know that she would stay for seven years, and not a moment longer. Stephen von Sychowski succeeds Joey — and man, oh man (and woman, of course), we who live in Vancouver are fortunate to have two such strong-minded people on our side, fighting for us each and every day.
VanRamblings came away from our brief conversation with Mr. von Sychowski thinking that, if there is anyone on the planet who might ‘broker a deal’ with the five, disparate — yet uniformly progressive — Vancouver civic parties, it is recently-elected VDLC President, Stephen von Sychowski.
You know how some people are gifted with emotional intelligence, have within them an innate understanding of both the human psyche and the human heart, are that rare breed of human being who are born leaders, inspiring and possessed of a fidelity of spirit and goodness that the moment you feel and see it, a calmness washes over you, a feeling of safety and self-assuredness invests your spirit? Meet Stephen von Sychowski. Wow!
Prior to speaking with Stephen (pronounced Stef-awn), we were a little querulous about the potential for success of this weekend’s upcoming May 6th / 7th ‘broker a deal’ meeting at the VDLC offices. Not any more.
In Stephen’s own words …
“The objective of the Labour Council — continuing with the work in which we’ve engaged these past months with the five progressive parties who will field candidates in the upcoming Vancouver civic election — will be to encourage co-operation between the five groups, or at minimum an accommodation between the progressive forces in this city, around the coming election, to ensure that we don’t have a repeat of the by-election last fall where, despite the vast majority of Vancouver citizens voting for progressive candidates the NPA was elected because of the fact that those majority votes were split fives ways.
Clearly, to progressive voters in Vancouver that’s an unacceptable scenario, and one that is detrimental to their interests. Losing progressive government in Vancouver as a result of the inability of folks to work together is simply not a circumstance that our members — and we feel quite certain, representatives from COPE, Team Jean, OneCity, Vision Vancouver and the Greens cannot and will not allow to occur again.
This weekend, the Vancouver & District Labour Council will engage in a more formal discussion with representatives from the five progressive civic parties, than has been the case to date.
Mediated representatives from the Labour Council will work with the five civic parties, as we hope to achieve — if not this Sunday, then in the coming days — an agreement respecting how many candidates would run in order to minimize vote-splitting.
The citizens of Vancouver deserve a civic government that is on their side, an elected Mayor and majority City Council who will work with the federal and provincial governments to ensure a supply of affordable, member-owned housing co-operatives built on city and Crown land, and who will work to ensure that transit for children under the age of 12 is free, will work with the provincial government to eliminate poverty and wont in our city, will work to ensure that city workers are treated fairly, and that a negotiated collective agreement will set the standard for municipal employee collective agreements across the region, and our province.
For VanRamblings’ complete coverage of #VancouverVotes2018, click on this link. VanRamblings continues to publish civic election coverage Monday thru Thursday and will do so through the end of August, at which point our civic election coverage will transform daily into Vancouver municipal election coverage, through until Election Day October 20th, leaving our Friday VanRamblings to ‘arts coverage’ (tomorrow, with coverage of the DOXA Documentary Film Festival — although you’ll want to read yesterday’s column on the DOXA débuting, Harry Rankin: Legacy of a Radical, which kicks off our socialist / feminist / activist / COPE-member friend, Selina Crammond’s first-ever Vancouver-based doc festival where she’s the head honcho Programme Director — yippee, Ms. Crammond!), with Saturdays given over to — commencing this weekend — Stories of a Life (we’ve all got ’em), and on Sundays … who knows?
