If you’ve arrived on this page of the VanRamblings blog, and haven’t read Part 1 of A Primer on Civic Politics in Vancouver, you may want to read it first, as the initial post contains elements which may be of interest to you.
Today, we present a cursory insight into the history, the platforms, the principles and the raison d’être of the remaining six Vancouver municipal political parties (we covered COPE - The Coalition of Progressive Electors, in Part 1), and the candidates for these parties who are seeking office in the 2014 Vancouver municipal election. As per usual, today’s post will be given over to some of VanRamblings’ patented, some would say florid — and, we hope entertaining and informative — and always idiosyncratic commentary.
As we’ve said repeatedly over the past near five months now, the 2014 Vancouver civic election is the most crucial election in our city in the past 42 years, since Tom ‘Terrifying’ Campbell was ousted as Mayor of our west coast paradise, and good government — under the auspices of The Electors’ Action Movement (TEAM), a progressive and truly visionary centre-left municipal government — was installed at Vancouver City Hall, for multiple successive pioneering and innovational terms of civic government.
From the 1970s, we have Mayor Art Phillips and his eight TEAM Councillors of the day — UBC professors Walter Hardwick, Fritz Bowers, Setty Pendakur and William Gibson, who made up the Council’s sagacious academic quartet; respected urban planner and landscape architect, Art Cowie; future Vancouver mayor and British Columbia premier Mike Harcourt; activist, feminist and future provincial NDP cabinet minister Darlene Marzari, who fought like hell against the proposed freeway both the federal and provincial governments wanted to impose on Vancouver; as well as lawyer, & future (and eventually discredited) Vancouver mayor, lawyer Jack Volrich — to thank for the livability of the Vancouver we know and love today.
As reported by Rod Mickleburgh in his April 23, 2013 obituary, covering the life and many accomplishments of Art Phillips’ term as Mayor, he writes …

For years, the city had sold off property it owned and used the proceeds to keep taxes low. That was wrong, Phillips said. Several years ahead of Alberta’s famous Heritage Fund, he established a property endowment fund, where all revenue from the city’s extensive holdings would be deposited, invested and used, when needed, for the benefit of the city.

The list of accomplishments included an end to the city’s prevailing secrecy, holding public hearings at night so working people could attend, killing off all freeway plans, saving the storied Orpheum Theatre, improving accommodation in the benighted Downtown Eastside, the introduction of mixed-income housing, and altered zoning to allow apartment living downtown. Mr. Phillips was big on that.

“Instead of being dead at night, we wanted the downtown core to be more European, a place to live and enjoy,” he said, in his 2005 interview. “The changes we made then are taken for granted today.”

The startling decision to convert the industrial, waterside flats of False Creek just west of downtown into mixed housing was also a landmark.”

In 2014, Vancouver faces many of the same challenges that the TEAM Council of the day addressed, as they both set about to undo the harm done by overly-developer-friendly mayors, in the case of TEAM, Mayor Tom Campbell, and in the case of the Non-Partisan Association, the Vision Vancouver civic administration that has held office at City Hall since 2008.

Non-Partisan Association (NPA), founded 1937

In 1937, when Vancouver’s oldest and most established municipal political party, the Non-Partisan Association, was formed to counteract the rise and burgeoning popularity of the democratic socialist Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (which transformed into the New Democratic Party, in 1961), as revolutionary fervor and the presumed success of a workers’ government in Russia swept the western world, and as the demand for a radical shift in the dynamics of the worker-employer relationship predominated, the Non-Partisan Association emerged as Vancouver’s centre-right alternative to the radicalism of the left, promising always good government, and maintenance of a comforting status quo.
Since its inception, the Non-Partisan Association has emerged as Vancouver’s natural governing party, holding the reins of power at City Hall, and at Park Board and School Board, as well, for all but four short terms of municipal government since the founding of the civic political party.
Drawing its strongest support from the business community and Vancouver neighbourhoods on the wealthier west side of the city, the Non-Partisan Association has remained the civic political party that has dedicated itself to the maintenance of city services, almost a serene form of government where decisions are made in the public view, and election after election the voting electorate of the city have given their consent to another salutary term of government to the always ethical and principled NPA.
The NPA, then, has generally been given to the provision of what we would all acknowledge as ‘good government‘, focusing on services to meet the needs of Vancouver residents — clean and safe streets, a thriving parks and recreation system, fiscally responsible decision-making that has kept property taxes low, and a form of government where elected officials believe, to their core, in the concept of service to the public interest. No communists or radicals these, but rather humble, good-hearted, well-intentioned folks whose simple purpose is to listen to, and act upon, the wishes of the electorate, in every neighbourhood across our city.
Over the years, of course, the Non-Partisan Association has moved to change with the times, as circumstances dictated.
When the centre-left Art Phillips-led TEAM administration formed civic government in Vancouver 1972, and radical and boisterous Premier Dave Barrett formed a majority New Democratic Party provincial government in Victoria, the NPA could sense the shifting winds of change, and moderated the more conservative elements of its platform and approach to municipal governance. After the brief, but salutary, TEAM interregnum the NPA incorporated the more democratic and neighbourhood-oriented elements of TEAM’s approach to municipal governance, as the NPA once again became Vancouver’s natural governing party of responsible and good government.

In 2014, Non-Partisan Association mayoralty candidate Kirk LaPointe has dubbed the NPA, the Naturally Progressive Association, with a plethora of both small and big-L federal Liberals running with the party in the current civic election, under Mr. LaPointe — who is wont to say, “This is my party now. It is not the party of your fathers and mothers” — the NPA of 2014 has re-dedicated itself to serving the interests of a broad cross-section of the community in every part of the city, addressing social issues like child hunger, focusing on the economy and the promotion of resource sector jobs to strengthen Vancouver’s economy, and the restoration of good government that is based on openness, transparency and intent of purpose, which is to say, listening to the concerns of residents in every neighbourhood across the city, consulting with the public and acting on the developed community consensus, which in 2014 — after six years of Vancouver’s secretive, non-consultative, neighbourhood-and-park-destroying Vision Vancouver administration is, when you get right down to it, quite a radical — and dare we say, welcome — change, indeed.
In many ways, Kirk LaPointe and those running with him to form municipal government in the city of Vancouver are a mirror reflection of and not dissimilar to the TEAM party of Art Phillips — for the NPA of 2014 are a forward-thinking, well-educated, balanced and progressive team of candidates who will seek to undo the harm done by the Vision Vancouver administration of Gregor Robertson, while restoring open government and transparency of decision-making, as well as an opening of the books, while ensuring that no child goes to school hungry, and restoring a respectful relationship with residents across every neighbourhood in our city.

Whereas the current Vision Vancouver municipal government, and the Coalition of Progressive Electors — both of which parties employ and have a long history of a Marxist-oriented, top down, “we are the vanguard of revolutionary change, we know what’s good for you, and we’re going to give it to you whether you want it or not” — approach to governance that is given to an unrepentant arrogance, the Non-Partisan Association’s plea to the voting electorate in 2014 offers a a simple and clear message: we know the Vancouver you want, and given the confidence and the support of the voters, those of us who are elected to serve you will set about to reinstate good government on all three civic elected bodies, as we ensure the provision of city services that meet the needs of all Vancouver citizens — from the promotion of pedestrian safe streets and more bike lanes and bike paths, to the acquisition of street sweepers to keep our streets clean, and the maintenance and building of new parks, and recreation centres.
Since 2008, when Vision Vancouver first formed government in the city of Vancouver, the NPA have been out of power but have formed a vibrant and engaged opposition, and in many ways have proved to be the conscience of city government, responsible, consultative, and dedicated to advocacy and responsive government. For many in our city, the messaging of the Non-Partisan Association is resonating like never before — all of which could / might / let’s hope it does lead to change in the structure and application of the governance of our city, most particularly at City Hall and Park Board.

Vision Vancouver, founded 2005Vancouver Courier: Geoff Olson’s editorial cartoon in the November 6th edition of the paper

Okay, you don’t arrive at VanRamblings expecting to find balanced coverage of the entirely despicable and bullying Vision Vancouver civic party. As far as VanRamblings is concerned, the sooner we’re rid of Vision and their arrogant Richard Daley-style of city government, the better off we’ll all be.
Now, you see Geoff Olson’s Vancouver Courier editorial cartoon above. The cartoon’s thesis is that Vision Vancouver is in the pockets of big business & the big unions, that the decisions Vision Vancouver takes at City Council and Park Board are to better the interests of their corporate and union bosses — which decision-making is, of course, contrary to your interests and the interests of the vast majority of Vancouver’s voting electorate.

As background on one aspect of the allegations, in an October 16th article in The Courier, journalist Bob Mackin details what might be considered a pay-for-play / quid pro quo deal that many in the community — including Non-Partisan Association mayoral candidate Kirk LaPointe — have read and interpreted as a form of corrupt governance at City Hall, about which LaPointe wrote in an opinion piece published in The Province newspaper …

“Being clearly beholden to the city’s workers right now is an irresponsible service to the city. The union is approaching contract discussions, and any early definition of the city’s bargaining position is a breach of fiduciary duty. It gives away the store.”

Corporate donations were written about in The Straight, and reference is made to Vision Vancouver’s corporate donation base in an e-mail distributed this morning by COPE, the Coalition of Progressive Electors, that is excerpted below, detailing yet another facet of Vision Vancouver’s win-at-all-costs “dirty tricks” campaign style. Principles and ethics in the Vision Vancouver universe? — alien concepts. Little wonder that in the waning days of Campaign 2014 — as voters become aware there’s an election going on — support for Vision Vancouver has plummeted.
An excerpt from this morning’s e-mail to COPE members …

You may have received a robocall today from former City Councillor David Cadman, asking you to vote Vision. We’re told he makes a plea to COPE members not to split the vote — essentially, to hold their nose and vote Vision. We’re not sure how Vision got all these numbers but we’re going to find out.

In a sense, this is good news. It means Vision is running scared.

The same day (former COPE city councillor) Cadman endorsed Vision, the public got to see Vision’s donations. This year Vision took $1.4 million from corporations. They took $75,000 from Holborn Properties, the company that worked with the BC Liberals to replace Little Mountain public housing with luxury condos.

Yesterday, Vision held a press conference where Gregor Robertson warmly welcomed the endorsement of former NPA president, Michael Davis, a spin doctor for oil tankers.

VanRamblings knows many of the folks in the Vision Vancouver party, and we honestly and truly like them, and will probably work with many of them in future days on various New Democratic party campaigns.
That said, the experience of many of us across Vancouver who are engaged in daily political life in our metropolitan centre have come to believe that, collectively, there is a shocking, appalling and disturbing psychopathy in Vision Vancouver’s approach to governance that in Vision’s woeful six years in power has meant ill for Vancouver residents across our city, and in every Vancouver neighbourhood in our beloved community of communities.
Jak King and Garth Mullins, activists who have organized in the Grandview-Woodland neighbourhood; Stephen Bohus, and the members of his Residents Association of Mount Pleasant; Randy Helten, and all those who have worked with him in the West End Neighbours Association; Tracey Moir, working with the Oakridge Langara Area Residents; and hundreds more engaged community activists who love our city, love our parks, love our livable and walkable and human-scale neighbourhoods, and our beloved and accessible community-run neighbourhood community centres, have risen up against Vision Vancouver this past three years, and more. You should, too!
In an article published in the Globe and Mail this morning, journalist Frances Bula makes reference to the hostility that the Mayor and his Vision Vancouver colleagues have met with at the all-candidates meetings that have been held across our city this past month. No kidding!
If you have any idea at all about what Vision Vancouver has been up to the past six years (read Decision 2014 coverage on VanRamblings for a bare hint of why engaged citizens across Vancouver have risen up against Vision Vancouver during the course of this election cycle, and in the past three years), you won’t even consider casting a vote for a Vision Vancouver candidate running for office for Vancouver City Council, or for Park Board.
For a somewhat more dispassionate take on Vision Vancouver, its formation, and the history of Vision Vancouver and its faux Green liberalism, information may be found in the Wikipedia entry available online.

Green Party of Vancouver, founded 1984

The Green Party of Vancouver is a municipal political party in Vancouver that nominated Green Party of Canada deputy leader Adrianne Carr as their sole nominee for Vancouver City Council in the 2011 Vancouver civic election. Carr subsequently went on to win the seat in that year’s November 19th civic election, and is the sole Green member of Vancouver City Council.
As we wrote of Carr in Part 1 of A Primer of Civic Politics in Vancouver …

Isn’t everybody voting Green this time around, given that Green party City Councillor Adriane Carr was, throughout this last term, the conscience of Council, where over the course of those three, very trying years (when Vision Vancouver treated her despicably, and as she maintained her dignity, and her advocacy for the interests of Vancouver citizens), Adriane Carr emerged as not only the most beloved political figure in Vancouver, but across all of western Canada, as well. Make no mistake, the Green Party of Vancouver, in this hard fought municipal election campaign, will garner many, many votes at the polls, from the grateful and appreciative citizens of Vancouver …

The Green Party of Vancouver was founded in 1984, and has elected representatives to School Board, Park Board & most recently, City Council.
As above, in 2011, Adriane Carr — one of the party’s original founders — was elected as Vancouver’s first ever Green City Councillor.
Since that time, Adriane has gained the respect and admiration of Vancouver citizens who value her independent voice on Council, her strong democratic principles, and her readiness to listen to what citizens have to say and then to be a voice for them at City Hall.
In 2014, Adriane Carr is seeking re-election to Vancouver Council along with Council running mates Pete Fry and Cleta Brown. Stuart Mackinnon and Michael Wiebe are the Green party candidates for Vancouver Park Board, and Mischa Oak — who many consider to be the hardest-working candidate running for office in the 2014 Vancouver municipal election — and Janet Fraser, are the Green Party of Vancouver candidates for School Board.
In some very real sense, the Green Party of Vancouver candidate team is your independent, non-aligned voice in civic politics. Given Adriane Carr’s overwhelming & deserved popularity with voters, her political coattails in this election could very well elect all, or almost all, of the Green Party of Vancouver candidates running for Council, Park Board and School Board.

Here’s the Green Party of Vancouver’s platform, which explicates a programme which will ensure that the public interest will be placed first, that people-centred planning will predominate, where your voice will be heard, and the crisis arising from the lack of affordable housing will be addressed, and our city Vancouver will remain a compassionate, safe and inclusive city.

The Vancouver Cedar Party, founded 2013Brothers Nicholas and Glen Chernen, Vancouver Cedar Party candidates for Council

Full disclosure: in the 2014 Vancouver civic election, VanRamblings has frequently met with the members and donated monies to the Coalition of Progressive Electors, the Green Party of Vancouver, and the newest political force on the civic block, the Vancouver Cedar Party, headed up by Glen Chernen (on the right above), and his brother, Nicholas Chernen.
As it happens, the Vancouver Cedar Party campaign headquarters is located just three blocks down the way from the housing co-operative where VanRamblings has resided for the past 30+ years (and where we raised our children), the campaign office located directly across from the shuttered Hollywood Theatre on West Broadway. VanRamblings has made a point of dropping by the Cedar Party’s offices almost every day — which I’m sure on some days has driven them nuts, but even so, both Nicholas and Glen have proved invariably kind and welcoming, and forthcoming about the campaign.
More than any other party running candidates for office in the current civic election, the Vancouver Cedar Party has held Vision Vancouver’s feet to the fire — releasing one devastating press release after another detailing the egregious, secretive, wrong-headed, anti-community (some would say, corrupt) decision-making that has gone on behind closed doors at City Hall, and inside the Mayor’s office, as Vision Vancouver has sacrificed the community interest in favour of the interests of their developer friends.

Awhile back, arising from one of the Vancouver Cedar Party’s press releases, VanRamblings wrote about the hidden-from-public-view decision taken in the Mayor’s office to — without any hint of consultation with the community, never mind the elected members of Council and Park Board, including elected representatives from their own party, and a bewildered, deer-in-the-headlights Park Board General Manager, Malcolm Bromley — sell off 12 parcels of city-owned land at the north-east end of the Granville Street bridge, move the Aquatic Centre from its current location to a land-locked location east of the bridge, tear down the Continental Hotel, and seek to sign a development contract for the newly gathered together, city-owned property with one of their insider developer friends.
The Vancouver Cedar Party offers 7 reasons for entering the political fray as candidates for Council in 2014’s Vancouver civic election — and assure voters that a vote for the Cedar Party will mean that elected Council candidates will be unbeholden to anyone but you, and that elected members will work toward the restoration of fiscal responsibility at City Hall, and environmental stewardship at Vancouver Park Board.
Chances are the Vancouver Cedar Party will not elect any candidates the first time out seeking political office — although Nicholas Chernen has garnered the endorsements of community groups and political activist Jak King, as will be the case with VanRamblings when we announce our slate of candidates for endorsement in the coming week — but it’s worth your while to take a gander at their ‘Rooted in Democracy’ website, and / or drop by their campaign office for an unenlightening chat about Campaign 2014.
Honestly, Glen and Nicholas Chernen — and fellow Council candidates Charlene Sayo and Jeremy Gustafson — are worthy candidates in the 2014 Vancouver municipal election, and deserving of your attention.

One City Vancouver, founded 2014

Formed by an activist group of citizens once affiliated with the The Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE), One City Vancouver is running only one candidate in this election, RJ Aquino, an individual who ran as a candidate for COPE in Vancouver’s 2011 municipal election and who, in 2014, is running as a candidate for the nascent One City Vancouver civic party. RJ has acquitted himself well on the campaign trail, emerging as a thoughtful and informed candidate for Vancouver City Council, who would well serve the interests of the citizens of Vancouver were he elected to Council.

Still, there’s this niggling thought in the back of my mind that, forever however much VanRamblings likes and respects RJ (and we do!), that if push came to shove, and he was the deciding, swing vote on Council, that he’d line up with Vision Vancouver when it came down to the crunch.
VanRamblings knows well, and has worked with, many folks who are behind the creation of One City Vancouver, and I know them all to be honourable citizens of conscience who have always had the interests of the broader community at heart, have organized to ensure democratic decision-making and citizen engagement in neighbourhoods across our city, and worked throughout their lives to work towards a fairer, more just Vancouver, and a more just world, for all — political activists who made a difference.
With the above in mind, a vote for RJ Aquino would not be a wasted vote.

As blogger and freelance civic affairs journalist Frances Bula wrote earlier today, it’s difficult to figure out why Vancouver 1st has candidates running for office in this election, what they stand for, and why voters would give even a passing thought to voting for any of their candidates?
Awhile back, Vancouver 1st announced that right-wingers Ken Denike and Sophia Woo — current members of Vancouver School Board — who were unceremoniously kicked out of the Non-Partisan Association, would run as School Board candidates for the party. Really?
At the same time, the party announced the candidacy of Olympic bronze medallist Brent Hayden for Park Board, not that he’s been seen anywhere on the campaign trail. Former President of the Thunderbird Neighbourhood Association, Massimo Rossetti, has acquitted himself well in the campaign, as has Vancouver 1st’s Jesse Johl (who’s running for Council) — but at the end of the day, unless you’re a rabid right-winger (and how many of those are there in Vancouver?), why would anyone give even a passing thought to casting a vote for any Vancouver 1st candidate? Just sayin’.

Voter participation in Vancouver civic elections is abysmal.
In 2008, when Vision Vancouver was elected to its first majority term, the voter turnout rate was 30.79%. Of the 403,663 registered Vancouver voters, the office of the Chief Elections Officer at City Hall reported only 124,285 Vancouver residents filled out a ballot, a decrease of 1.66% from the 32.45% turnout for the 2005 municipal election.
In 2011, after Vision Vancouver spent $657,000 in a massive television ad buy the final five days of the campaign (bringing out an extra 10,000 votes for the party, according to tracking results released internally by Strategic Communications, Vision’s pollster of record), voter turnout registered at 34.57%, mainly as a consequence of that Vision ad blitz, which alerted a sleepy Vancouver populace to the pending civic election polling day.

City Councillor George Affleck performing his Council chamber duties at Vancouver City Hall

Recently, at an all-candidates meeting, current Non-Partisan Association city councillor George Affleck — who, in 2014, is seeking voter support for a second term at City Hall — expressed wonderment at the low turnout rate.

“We’re the level of government that is closest to you. Unlike the senior levels of government, you can actually reach out and touch us, you can put your hand on my shoulder. As a city councillor I am more available to you as an elected representative than would ever be the case with your federal or provincial representative. What Council, or Park Board, does day-in, day-out affects the quality of your life. You have a stake in the outcome of the election, you can determine the kind of city that you want going forward, and play a role in helping determine what civic priorities will be in the next term of your local government.”

Yet, nine days out from election day — Saturday, November 15th — insider polling for Vancouver’s two major political parties indicates a woeful level of citizen engagement, and a probable 28% voter participation rate this year.

Earlier in the week, I was speaking with a doctor friend of mine — one of the brightest, most accomplished people I know — about the current civic election, and who I would be supporting as candidates in the election. During the course of the conversation, my friend revealed to me that he didn’t know the names of any of the political parties in Vancouver, nor was he aware of the names of any of the current members of Council, or possess the foggiest notion of what any of the parties stood for, what they’d accomplished, what the issues are in this election, and why he — or his lovely bride of some 30 years — should vote one way or the other.
Another friend of mine, someone I often attend movie previews with, although he has some vague notion that Gregor Robertson is our Mayor, doesn’t know what party Mr. Robertson is a member of, is unaware of not just the platforms but the names of the opposition parties, who their candidates are, and why there’s this big hue and cry — among some, including me — to oust Gregor Robertson from municipal government.
At the request of not just the two friends mentioned above, but many, many others in the community, in today and Saturday’s posts on VanRamblings, I’ll publish a primer on civic politics in Vancouver, where I will seek to provide insight into the six political parties that are vying for office, on all three civic bodies — Council, Park Board and School Board — write a bit about the history of these parties, what they stand for, and the primary issues of concern that have been identified by engaged voters.
Given that for most of my political history, dating back to the 1970s, I was (and remain) a member of the Coalition of Progressive Electors, the section on COPE will run longer and in more depth than is the case with the remaining parties seeking office in the 2014 Vancouver municipal election.
Not to mention, to this point in time, VanRamblings has not given COPE it’s rightful due — for the Coalition of Progressive Electors has run a first-rate campaign, setting the agenda for the issues of importance in our city (affordable housing, the economy, openness and transparency at City Hall).
COPE mayoralty candidate, Meena Wong, has in particular acquitted herself passionately and well on the campaign trail, as have all of the candidates COPE has presented to Vancouver voters in Campaign 2014.
In Part 1 of A Primer on Civic Politics in Vancouver, COPE’s history, from the party’s inception til now. On Saturday, readers can expect to find an idiosyncratic take on the Non-Partisan Association, Vision Vancouver, the illustrious Green Party of Vancouver, about which I have written elsewhere:

Isn’t everybody voting Green this time around, given that Green party City Councillor Adriane Carr was, throughout this last term, the conscience of Council, where over the course of those three, very trying years (when Vision Vancouver treated her despicably, and as she maintained her dignity, and her advocacy for the interests of Vancouver citizens), Adriane Carr emerged as not only the most beloved political figure in Vancouver, but across all of western Canada, as well. Make no mistake, the Green Party of Vancouver, in this hard fought municipal election campaign, will garner many, many votes at the polls, from the grateful and appreciative citizens of Vancouver …

… and will write about, as well, the near-independent civic election party, IDEA, and the nascent Vancouver First political party.

Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE), founded 1968The 2014 Coalition of Progressive Electors’ (COPE) slate of candidates seeking office
The Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE), formed in 1968 — then known as the Committee of Progressive Electors — was mainly a creature of the activist Vancouver chapter of the Communist Party, and the Vancouver & District Labour Council. The VDLC’s Frank Kennedy and gruff, outspoken lawyer Harry Rankin were key figures in shaping the coalition, along with activists from the provincial New Democratic Party, social justice organizations, and an amalgam of left-wing, activist community groups.
These were the days when many of us believed that the contradictions of a corrupt, unjust capitalist economic system were so great that it would lead to the imminent collapse of western society as we knew it (as Marx had long ago predicted), leading to a socialist revolution that was, we were all certain, just around the corner. If I remember correctly, it was current Vancouver city councillor Geoff Meggs — among many, many others — who would be my comrade-in-arms, as we set about to man the barricades.
Even given all of the above, and given our heartfelt belief in the imminent, forthcoming socialist revolution, COPE was formed espousing somewhat more modest goals, which is to say, as a Vancouver municipal party that would effectively organize against the Non-Partisan Association (NPA) — a centre-right political party that had dominated civic politics in Vancouver for nearly three decades. The formation of COPE, and its importance as a voice for working class people, and the most vulnerable in our city, came about in response, as well, to the extreme right-of-centre (some would say, corrupt) leadership of independent Mayor, Tom Campbell.
For most of its history, COPE has had an uneasy relationship with centre-left parties at the municipal level. From 1972 to 1986, COPE competed with The Electors’ Action Movement, which in the 1970s governed the city under prominent federal Liberal, Mayor Art Phillips.
By the late 1970s, a breakaway faction of TEAM, comprised mainly of supporters of the provincial NDP and led by, now former, TEAM city councillor, and future NDP premier, Mike Harcourt formed an electoral alliance with COPE, from which both parties benefited. Led by Harcourt, the coalition governed from the centre and, although it ran a unified slate with COPE with the co-operation and support of the VDLC, Harcourt’s three-person Civic Independents party quite often voted with the NPA, and the remaining TEAM councillors, and against COPE’s more socialist policies.
COPE’S Harry Rankin ran for office more than a dozen times before finally being elected to Vancouver city council in 1966, as the sole independent alderman — and champion of working class people — on a Council dominated by the NPA, where he served for 20 consecutive years, often topping the polls, with great support from across the city, including the west side neighbourhoods of Kerrisdale, Dunbar and West Point Grey, who continually re-elected him to Council to hold the NPA’s feet to the fire.
The Council debates between the NPA’s George Puil and Harry Rankin became legendary — although the perception was that the two were bitter enemies and rivals who hated one another, in fact the two remained friends throughout their long and celebrated political careers, and were always respectful of one another. Ah, for the bygone days of Vancouver politics.
Rankin was so popular that voters not only supported him, but consistently elected a COPE opposition consisting of downtown eastside activist Bruce Eriksen, housing activist Bruce Yorke, and current Vancouver East federal Member of Parliament and deputy leader of the federal NDP, Libbi Davies. When Rankin lost his bid for Mayor in 1986, the provincial NDP and members of the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation staged a coup and ousted Rankin, as the party went on to fallow years on Vancouver’s municipal political scene, electing only Jenny Kwan to Council in the 90s, and COPE stalwart Tim Louis, and Donna Morgan, to Park Board.
All that changed, however, in 2002 when the Non-Partisan Association became riven with division, as a bitter battle between a right-wing faction led by Jennifer Clarke and a moderate faction led by then NPA Mayor Philip Owen all but destroyed the party, creating the conditions for what became a long-awaited COPE victory at the polls, when every candidate running under COPE’s banner was elected, on all three of Vancouver’s civic bodies.

Following the 2002 election, COPE itself became riven with internal conflict.
Going into the 2002 election, COPE had sought a high-profile mayoral candidate, and they found one in Larry Campbell — a former RCMP officer, and coroner in the Vancouver District Coroner’s office from 1981 through 1996, much of Campbell’s eventual success with voters attributed to his charismatic personality, colourful background, and the belief that his life inspired a popular CBC television drama of the day, Da Vinci’s Inquest.
From the outset, following his election to the Mayor’s office, Campbell — a self-described moderate centrist (so moderate, in fact, that the opposition NPA approached him to run as their mayoralty candidate in 2005) — and not previously a member of COPE — refused to caucus with the party he’d run with as mayoral candidate, which as you might well imagine wreaked havoc within COPE, making it nearly impossible to develop a governance programme that might, or might not, find favour with the maverick mayor.
Infighting and internal strife within COPE reached such a fevered pitch that three COPE councillors (dubbed “COPE Lite” or “Diet COPE” by the media) separated and formed a new party, Vision Vancouver, which ran for office for the first time in the 2005 municipal election, choosing former COPE Councillor Jim Green as their mayoralty candidate.
Green lost by a hair’s breadth when dirty politics attributed to winning NPA mayoralty candidate, Sam Sullivan, was accused of / thought to have colluded with an individual by the name of James Green, who placed his name on the mayoral ballot — confusing voters — and ushering in the Sam Sullivan mean-spirited regime at City Hall. COPE, however, won only one seat at the Council table, electing David Cadman to a second term in office.
COPE did not run a mayoralty candidate in 2005, nor in 2008 or 2011, as an uneasy “co-operative agreement” was struck between the nascent Vision Vancouver civic party and a weakened, and disheartened, COPE. In 2011, COPE elected only one candidate to a civic body, Allan Wong at School Board (Wong has since left COPE, & is now running with Vision Vancouver).

Arising from COPE’s near wipeout at the polls, in April 2012, at a sometimes rancourous COPE annual general meeting, a coalition of left activists — led by former two-term city councillor, Tim Louis; former Green Party leader Stuart Parker, and left activists affliliated with online The Mainlander journal — succeeded in taking over all but four positions (out of 12) on the COPE Executive, the remaining “appeasing four” resigning from COPE in the fall of 2013. Since that time, left coalition activist / COPE exec member Stuart Parker — and many of his ardent supporters — also left COPE.

Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) 2014 slate for Mayor, and Council candidates

Still and all, returning to its roots as an activist social justice party, in 2014 the Coalition of Progressive Electors is running longtime COPE member Meena Wong as the party’s first mayoralty candidate in 12 years, and COPE members have selected a first-rate slate of dedicated social justice advocates who, although the party will likely not form government following the current civic election (nor, it is probable, elect many candidates to civic office) has set the political agenda in Vancouver’s Campaign 2014.

What does COPE stand for, what are their goals? According to COPE’s constitution, Vancouver’s second oldest municipal party has three aims:

• To unite individuals and groups behind a programme of progressive civic reform;
• To involve Vancouver residents and community organizations in public action in furtherance of their interests and the collective interests of Vancouver; and
• To nominate and endorse candidates for election to civic office in order to promote these purposes, and to provide direction and guidance to such candidates, both before and after they have been elected.

For the first time in a generation, COPE is living up to its constitutional goals, and in 2014 is running on a social justice platform of addressing the affordable housing crisis, as the party’s candidates have set about to advocate for the construction of a City-built and City-owned affordable housing stock. The Coalition of Progressive Electors is the only municipal political party that has placed before the voting public a realistic plan for ensuring the construction and provision of affordable housing.

In addition, in the current civic election COPE has campaigned on …

• The adoption of a $15-an-hour minimum wage, already a successful initiative in the city of Seattle, and a referendum item that met with success in five states and numerous cities and counties across the United States in Tuesday’s U.S. election;
• A U-Pass, a $30-a-month universal transit pass programme for all residents of Vancouver, not dissimilar to the universal (U-Pass) programme that has proved a massive success at colleges and universities, which served to increase ridership while reducing fares, congestion, and carbon emissions;
• Transparency and local democracy, including long overdue campaign finance reform, enhanced and respectful neighbourhood consultation and local democratic governance, as well as electoral reform that will allow Vancouver residents to choose between the current at-large voting system, or replace it with a more democratic and neighbourhood-based ward system (as is the case in every municipality, outside of British Columbia, across the great expanse of Canada), among other democratic propositions that have much resonance with the voting electorate of Vancouver;
• Ending renovictions, implementation of a vacant property tax, and the development of guidelines for the retention and creation of affordable live music venues and art spaces, among many other salutary initiatives that would have much appeal to the broadest cross-section of Vancouver’s beleaguered voting public.

COPE is the party of principle, it is the only Vancouver civic party that exists that has as its primary goal working towards a Vancouver based on fairness, equity, and social justice — in other words, a Vancouver for all.

There are some folks who believe that COPE, in being a party of the left, has set unrealistic goals, that it is a party of ideologues with its head in the clouds, out of touch with the concerns of Vancouver’s voting public.
Such a cynical and hopeless notion couldn’t be further from the truth.

In fact, the goals that many of us set back in the 1960s are the goals that COPE continues to fight for today. Perhaps, as a reminder of the principles of what we as citizens once stood for, and the principles that we might once again embrace as we make our journey through the 21st century, let us recall the words of former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and 1968 candidate for President of the United States — hardly an individual and public figure who anyone would consider to be a radical or a revolutionary, yet who believed, as do the members of COPE, that …

“The purpose of life is to contribute in some way to making things better. Let no one be discouraged by the belief there is nothing one person can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills, misery, ignorance, and violence.

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

Few will have the greatness to bend history, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. And in the total of all those acts will be written the history of a generation. A revolution is coming — a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough — but a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not.

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why … I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”

Make no mistake, COPE is the future. Perhaps the future is not now — but if you look for it, you can see it; it is just off on the horizon.
Voters will want to save a vote for COPE, or two, or three or four.
For Vancouver City Council, voters may want to consider such outstanding candidates as Tim Louis, Gayle Gavin, Lisa Barrett, Sid Chow Tan, Keith Higgins and Audrey Seigl. I can tell you, as well, that young, passionate and articulate (also a wonderful writer) social justice advocate Jennifer O’Keeffe has garnered the support of many people of conscience in Campaign 2014, and that my good friend and social justice advocate, Wilson Munoz, will also garner many, many votes at the ballot box.
Read the candidate profiles of the very fine folks who are running with COPE — and for you — in the 2014 Vancouver civic election.
And, please, take the time to look at COPE’s platform, the issues COPE has identified in this vigorous and hard-fought campaign for elected office, and the campaign for change COPE has dedicated itself to in Campaign 2014.