One year from today, Vancouver will hold its triennial municipal election, Vancouver’s 101st election since the City was incorporated in 1886.
In Vancouver — where, unlike any other municipality in British Columbia, our election is held under the auspices of the Vancouver Charter — the citizens of our fair city will elect 10 City Councillors, 7 Park Board Commissioners, and 9 Board of Education Trustees who, from the weeks after the election, will conduct the governance of civic affairs in Canada’s third largest city.
And what an election it will be. Unless VanRamblings is off the mark — and we don’t believe we are — the 2014 civic election will prove to be the most disputatious election of a generation, as the nine parties seeking office attempt to slam their opponents with the knockout blow that will leave the challenger victorious, holding the reigns of government, or at the very least, the crucial swing votes that will determine Vancouver’s future.
Moreso than in any previous election, the nine parties that will compete for your vote, and elected office, will personalize their attacks on the members of the competing parties, identifying their opponents as “the other” …
The ‘Other’, VanRamblings would posit, is a member of another political party, who is designated by the ‘In’ group as not belonging, as being different in some fundamental way. Any political opponent becomes the ‘Other’. The municipal political party identifying “the Other(s)” sees itself as the norm and judges those who do not meet that norm as “the Other”. Perceived as lacking essential characteristics possessed by the ‘In’ group, the ‘Other’ is almost always seen as a lesser or inferior being and is treated accordingly in all pronouncements, and in the conduct of personal and political affairs in the common weal. The ‘Other’ will often be characterized as lacking, as less intelligent, or as unstable - which is to say, of reduced or challenged mental capacity - as amoral or immoral, and may even be regarded as tantamount to being sub-human.
And thus the tone will be set for the 2014 Vancouver municipal election.
Perhaps VanRamblings could expand on our definition of the ‘Other’, as we understand it as philosophical concept, and offer brief remedial prescription.
1. The concept of the ‘Other’ comes from the perspective that makes ‘difference’ the key focus in analyzing how we understand the world around us - thus the spelling is often capitalized.
2. The ‘Other’ is nearly always used as a negative term.
3. The myth of the ‘Other’ in literature, conceived of as ‘perilous’ and ‘strange’ or ‘abnormal’ plays with the concept of the monstrous ‘Other’. The concept of the monster helps to prevent those who identify with the main characters — or, in this instance, the proponents on the main political parties — from assuming that they know everything about them, that they are good; that there is, as Nietzsche has written, “dark chaos that sits in man’s hearts”, as it does in the hearts of the ‘Other’.
4. When the ‘In’ group designates the ‘Other’, they point out the perceived weaknesses of the ‘Other’, to make themselves look stronger, better, more able and more capable. Such designation implies a hierarchy, and it often serves to keep power where it already lies.
5. The ‘In’ group seeks to demonize, marginalize and punish the ‘Other’, often through heinous discriminatory measures, to eliminate the ‘Other’.
VanRamblings would argue we must strive in contemporary society for empathy and understanding, and the melding and blending of groups, in order that the ‘Other’ will no longer be a phenomena of our current era.
Each party running for office in 2014 will most assuredly identify their opponents as “the other”. It is a “if yer not fer us, yr agin us” philosophy of politics, reliant on a dehumanization of individual members of the opposing party, or parties, the political opponent as demon, who means to do ill — and in the case of Vision Vancouver, it will be claimed, has done ill — and should this unacceptable circumstance, and the aberrant individual(s) who currently hold office retain that office, competing party stalwarts will argue the apocalypse will most certainly be upon each and every one of us.
For many, with nine competing parties vying fiftfully for the attention of a disengaged electorate — let us not forget that in 2011 there was only a 34% turnout of eligible voters at the polls, and that only because of the $658,000 Vision Vancouver ad buy in the final five days of the campaign, a “happy face” strategy that brought out 10,000 “new” voters, in an election which resulted in a 4% greater turnout than in 2008, the election which brought Vision Vancouver to power — the 2014 Vancouver civic election will beggar belief in the malevolent tone of candidate political discourse.
Make no mistake, it will be Vision Vancouver and the NPA who, while attempting to knock each other off message, will bear the brunt of vituperative attack, as the only two parties with any conceivable chance of forming government, the “two developer parties” you will be told repeatedly, as if that is necessarily a bad thing — neither of which party, voters will be instructed, deserving of your vote, the panjundrum repeated ad nauseum, until a disgusted electorate tunes out the cacophony of ill will — none of which circumstance serves the public good or the common weal.
The question begs: does it have to be that way, must Vancouver politicians get down into the muck in order to prevail on election day?
Stepan Vdovine, Vision Vancouver’s Executive Director, would argue not.
In a Letter to the Editor published in this week’s Georgia Straight, Stepan writes about the paranoia about Vision Vancouver’s “secret agenda” …
The type of negative attacks we’re seeing from failed council candidates, or the Tea Party-like anger of the NPA, is not surprising as we approach the one-year mark to the next election. Mayor Gregor Robertson and the Vision Vancouver-led council have overseen a boom in new rental housing, more social housing being built in Vancouver than ever before, a drop in people sleeping on the streets, and strong action on climate change.
Let’s hope the various opposition parties start offering their own policy solutions, rather than more anger and negative attacks on Vision.
Further down the page, VanRamblings weighs in …
Stepan is, of course, right: decorum, decency and civility in covering - and in - public life would be a net good thing. Since the election of Sam Sullivan in 2005, politics has devolved to a disheartening degree, not helped by Mayor Gregor, in his first term, when he referred to folks like urban geographer Ned Jacobs as a “fucking NPA” hack. Not a lot of civility there.
Stepan is a good guy (c’mon now, he really is).
But the bare fact is that there are a great many Vancouver citizens who have become infuriated with Vision Vancouver, however ably and well Stepan has come to the defense of the party that employs him as its Executive Director.
My fear is that in the coming 12 months, those of us who live in Vancouver will experience the ugliest municipal political campaign of a generation, a campaign where both Vision Vancouver and the NPA (neither of which party is “the devil”) will be demonized by their opponents - be they from COPE, NSV, TEAM 2.0, Vancouver First, or the Cedar Party - and that, contrary to what Stepan would wish, we will hear precious little about, “policy solutions, rather than more anger and negative attacks on …” well, on Vision Vancouver and the NPA.
We live in perilous times. People are frustrated and angry, and don’t feel as if they’re being listened to; the natural consequence of that is, as Stepan writes, “Tea Party-like anger” … but directed not just at Vision Vancouver, but at any politico who just doesn’t get it.
Vision Vancouver, who’ve become one of the most tone-deaf civic administrations of a generation, will bear the brunt of that anger, in 2014.
This next year? It ain’t gonna be pretty.
Again, the question begs: does it have to be that way?
In a Toronto Star story published earlier in the week, former Ontario Tory leader Bill Davis argued, as VanRamblings does above, that we need more decorum, decency and civility in public life. In the 1970s, Davis built up a formidable campaign team — dubbed the Big Blue Machine — which resulted in a Progressive Conservative government in Ontario that prevailed from 1971 through 1985, with Davis as Premier. How did Davis achieve such a lengthy stay in government? As Martin Regg Cohn’s story suggests …
He governed from the progressive flank of the Progressive Conservative party, positioning it in the middle of Ontario politics and securing its place as the province’s natural governing dynasty. And by surrounding himself with savvy, compassionate political aides — cerebral Tories with heart — who helped him keep his ear to the ground while perched in the premier’s office from 1971-85.
The consequence? Good government. Progressive government. Government that listened to the people, and acted on their concerns. These days that almost seems like a foreign concept, doesn’t it?
In the coming days, weeks and months, VanRamblings will have a great deal to say about each of the political parties that will enter the municipal political electoral fray, next year, in the fight for your vote. As may be determined by our commentary above, we will not support Vision Vancouver’s re-election — outside of support for a handful of their Board of Education candidates — and will seek to move our support to the only Vancouver civic party that we believe has any chance whatsoever in dislodging Vision Vancouver — the most arrogant, untoward municipal government since the days of Tom “Terrific” Campbell, in the late 1960s / early 1970s.
In the past month and more, while working with members of the Kitsilano community, in the west side neighbourhood where VanRamblings has resided for more than thirty years, the Save Kits Beach movement has emerged as the civic story of legacy, for our children and their children. That the Non-Partisan Association, the NPA, emerged as the only municipal political party that acknowledged the importance of legacy is, for us, a profound sadness, in the political venture in which we are all going to be involved in the next year, as we head towards the polls on Nov. 15, 2014.
The NPA: a “right wing” party? Maybe in the past, but no more. No, in 2014, the NPA has learned its lesson, recovered from the nastiness that defined the Sam Sullivan administration (not that everything Sam, and his Council, did was “bad” — let’s leave aside “Sam’s strike” for the moment) — and has once again emerged as a humanist party, a party of parents and children, grandkids and uncles and aunts, sisters and brothers and neighbours, the only municipal political party in Vancouver — apart from Art Phillips’ TEAM (The Electors’ Action Movement) of the 1970s — that has ever come close to truly representing the middle class, which is where most of us find ourselves. Although COPE continues to fight the good fight for the poor, destitute and vulnerable, fights for truly affordable housing (not that they have the first clue what that means, in practice), and fights for better transit, while Vision Vancouver fights for raw, cynical power, and tell themselves lies each and every day to get through the day, it is the NPA, VanRamblings believes, which best represents the aspirations of the majority of Vancouverites, about which we will provide explanation and expansion in future VanRamblings posts, in the months to come.
Over the course of the coming 12 months, VanRamblings will keep an open mind. We know that TEAM 2.0’s Bill McCreery, Mike Andruff and Dave Pasin are decent men, men of character and intelligence. And despite all, we believe as much as we have always believed that COPE’s Stuart Parker — one of the brightest, most charismatic politicians of a generation — deserves a place on Vancouver City Council, as we pretty much believe of COPE stalwart Tim Louis, although we are probably among a minority of those who will support him at the polls in 2014, and perhaps more’s the pity on that count, because we need a firebrand on Vancouver City Council. Although it is not de rigeur to say so, we like Vancouver First candidate (and he will be) Jesse Johl. And, if Stuart Mackinnon runs for Vancouver City Council, as a Green candidate, he will most decidedly find our favour.
Make no mistake, though, it is the Non-Partisan Association, and the Non-Partisan Association alone that can unseat Vision Vancouver, and remove them from City Hall and Park Board: given that the NPA is the best-funded and most united municipal party entering next year’s Vancouver municipal election. And you know what else? The NPA is one of the only municipal political parties comprised of sincere folks of character with — wait for this — actual beating hearts — which is to say, there are great women and men in the NPA who are principled, centrist, have your best interests at heart, and should they run afoul of what it is that you want for your community — after assuming office in 2014 — you will be surprised and pleased to discover that the NPA will prove to be, as has always proved to be the case (save the interregnum of the Sam Sullivan administration, and portions of various eras prior to 1972), the one Vancouver municipal political party that — after six years of unbelievably arrogant government under Vision Vancouver — will actually listen to you, and what is even more important, act on your concerns for your benefit.
What if they don’t? (and they will, because as was the case with Bill Davis, the NPA wishes to be the once and forever Vancouver civic party of government), Vancouver voters can depend on our “liberal media” to hold the NPA’s feet to the fire, in a manner that has been woefully, disconcertingly, and unacceptably absent this past five years — with the notable exception of Charlie Smith, Carlito Pablo, and the dedicated Georgia Straight journalists who do their very best to keep us informed — which “comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable” journalistic philosophy will thankfully, and gratefully, once again come to the fore to serve us all.
