Derrick O’Keefe standing with his partner (and son’s mom), Andrea Pinochet-Escudero

Derrick O’Keefe’s emergence as a COPE candidate for Vancouver City Council redefines the 2018 race for civic office, and outlines in the starkest terms possible the core issue on which he, and most other of the progressive candidates seeking office will run: working people, immigrants, refugees, seniors living on fixed incomes, the homeless and persons living on the Downtown Eastside, and everyday folks like you and me vs the heartless, monied elites intent only on gathering more wealth for themselves, and who could give a good goddamn about the one in five children who live in poverty in our city, or as one person of my acquaintance who lives in a Shaughnessy mansion told me yesterday …

“Why should I care about people who can’t care for themselves and lift themselves out of poverty, who don’t help themselves? I pay enough in taxes as it is; I’m not going to pay one more red cent to the ungrateful, to those who can’t and won’t help themselves. Enough is enough!“

And wouldn’t you know that Derrick O’Keefe is running on a civic platform of Enough is enough!, where in a March 1st opinion piece that ran in The Georgia Straight, Mr. O’Keefe said exactly that, writing …

“Enough is enough. It’s time to treat Vancouver’s housing crisis as an emergency. The Straight reported on the fact that the City of Vancouver now defines a new three-bedroom unit renting at $3,702 per month as “affordable housing”. We’ve reached a level of absurdity in Vancouver where Orwellian political spin has given way to straight-up trolling.

The BC NDP’s renter’s rebate was lousy policy, when what we needed and what we still need is a rent freeze, as Jean Swanson campaigned for in last year’s by-election, and will campaign for again in 2018.

Cynical, complacent local politicians redefined “affordable housing,” draining the term of meaning, using it as a pretext to offer more tax breaks to their developer friends. Renters, who make up over half the population of our city, have been left almost entirely out of the discussion.

But, things are finally starting to change. You can only decouple local incomes from housing costs for so long before the pitchforks come out.

In 2018, renters’ issues will be front and centre in Vancouver, and it’s time to evict the politicians and parties responsible for the mess we’re in.”

Make no mistake, Derrick O’Keefe is a truth-teller, who will be loathe at any given point in his day to allow the elites to get away with their whiny, destructive and egregiously uncaring politics of privilege, who in the coming weeks and months will emerge as the single most important revolutionary political candidate in point of fact and intent, a voice speaking on behalf of not just the dispossessed in our city, but for each and every one of us who are not members of the monied elite of our city, the callous one percent.

Not possible that Derrick O’Keefe will get elected to Vancouver City Council late in the evening of Saturday, October 20th? Think again.
In 2013, Seattle economics professor Kshama Sawant — who ran on a platform advocating for LGBTQ+ issues, women’s issues, people of colour issues and reversal of the cuts to education and other social programmes, implementation of a “millionaire’s tax” that came to be known to wealthy Seattleites as the “Mansion Tax”, running on a platform of rent control, about which she said, “rent control is something everyone supports, except real estate developers …” ran as a socialist Council candidate, and won!
Ms. Sawant also advocated for an expansion of public transit and bikeways throughout the Metro Seattle region, ending corporate welfare, ending racial profiling, protecting public sector unions from layoffs, reducing taxes on small business and homeowners, living wage union jobs, and the expansion of social services. And, Kshama Sawant was the first political figure to advocate for a $15 an hour minimum wage — which we now see being implemented across Canadian jurisdictions, and in the United States.
By 2015, Seattle and Washington state politicians who thought her crazy and revolutionary when she ran for Council had implemented every single one of the platform items that Ms. Sawant had run on, and advocated for.
Why?
Because, unsurprisingly, when citizens see a political figure and hear a voice who speaks for them, as did Kshama Sawant, such a political figure almost inevitably emerges as a popular political figure, as did Ms. Sawant, who not only became Seattle’s most popular elected official, but the most popular elected representative across Washington state, as remains the case to this day. What other option was open to Ms. Sawant’s former detractors, now Council colleagues than to get on board with her, and pass the legislation the newly-engaged Seattle residents were clamouring for.
Kshama Sawant would not be refused. Derrick O’Keefe will not be refused.
And make no mistake, Mr. O’Keefe’s fellow COPE candidates for Council, Vancouver’s hope of our time, Jean Swanson, and her revolutionary companion and 2018 COPE Vancouver City Council candidate Anne Roberts — who’s already been in government as an elected COPE City Council member from 2002 to 2005, and knows how to get things done — will not be refused, will work on your behalf every single day of their elected lives.

Mr. O’Keefe’s COPE running mate, Jean Swanson, is the truth-telling McLuhanesque “cool” candidate in the 2018 Vancouver municipal election for City Council, espousing an awakening of political consciousness, and running on a social justice platform of principle, integrity, wry wit and an intellectualism that is easily understood by the vast majority of the public.
Derrick O’Keefe is most decidedly the “hot” candidate in the current Vancouver civic election, the fearless difference maker who tells it like it is in the starkest terms possible so there is no misunderstanding as to what he means, who is soulfully committed to doing the right thing, to addressing homelessness, wont, poverty & need, to addressing the issues that daily discriminate and limit the opportunity of our immigrant and refugee population, but also of the working people, persons of colour and the LGBTQ communities in our city struggling to provide for their families.

Young, charismatic, bright, articulate, passionate, and a populist in the finest tradition of Tommy Douglas, who speaks in words of one syllable in a compelling message not just of hope for our future, but change, and change now, in the coming days, weeks and months, Derrick O’Keefe will emerge as the candidate in the coming Vancouver civic election around whom other political figures running in the current Vancouver civic election will turn to and rally around, for Derrick O’Keefe’s, Jean Swanson’s and Anne Roberts’ demand for change, and change now, will become so undeniable, so popular with the voting public, so clarion and inspiring that come the evening of Saturday, October 20th, Anne, Jean and Derrick will have emerged as the top vote-getters at the polls in this 2018 Vancouver municipal election — after which celebration, they will get to work for you!

Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) candidates for office in the 2018 Vancouver civic election. Clockwise, starting top left, activists & persons of conscience all: Jean Swanson, Anne Roberts, John Irwin, Gwen Giesbrecht, Barb Parrott, Diana Day, and Derrick O’Keefe

As part of the deal struck with the Vancouver & District Labour Council (VDLC), the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) selected three candidates for Vancouver City Council at a nomination meeting held at the Holy Trinity Anglican Church, at 12th and Hemlock, this past Sunday afternoon, as well as two candidates for School Board and two candidates for Park Board, all of whom will be supported by the VDLC, and can reasonably expect to secure the votes of the 50,000 union members in the city of Vancouver. The “deal” and the fine candidates above represent a breakthrough for COPE — celebrating its 50th birthday this year — who are looking to elect their first candidate to office since the 2008 civic election.
COPE’s 2018 Vancouver City Council Candidates

Heading up COPE’s 2018 Council slate is Order of Canada recipient and veteran community and anti-poverty activist, Jean Swanson, who launched her campaign this past Saturday, as part of a raucous, enjoyable, fun and serious-minded reminder of what the core issues are that constitute “the city we need,” the banner under which Ms. Swanson is seeking office …

• A four-year rent freeze, including the outlawing of renovictions;

• Building the affordable and social housing we need across the city;

• Working toward universal free transit, starting with students & low income workers, while also working to institute a city carbon tax to expand transit, and supporting car and bike share programmes;

• Protecting the environment, including stopping Kinder Morgan, banning styrofoam and plastic bottles, and turning office lights off at night;

• Universal child care, including making Vancouver a pilot city for universal $10/day child care, creating 7,500 new early child care spaces and 10,000 new after-school care spaces to meet need, and prioritizing provision of indigenous-centred child care.

Jean Swanson and COPE’s Council platform summary is available here.

Derrick O’Keefe, a prominent analytical voice on Vancouver’s left wing, as The Georgia Straight has described him, has officially entered politics, in the 2018 civic election.

COPE Council candidate, Anne Roberts, launching her campaign for civic office, Saturday

Of course, as we have written previously, Anne Roberts and Jean Swanson constitute two members of Vancouver’s holy trinity of progressive political figures and persons of conscience in our city, who mean to give us The City We Need (the other member: OneCity Vancouver’s Christine Boyle), and as such represent three must-votes in this autumn’s Vancouver municipal election. In respect of Mr. O’Keefe, we will publish a column soon on what his near-revolutionary candidacy represents for Vancouver civic politics.
COPE’s 2018 Vancouver School Board candidates

2018 represents a 3rd time Diana Day has sought a seat on School Board.
The accomplished Diana Day, an Indigenous First Nations from the Oneida Nation, who graduated with an Honours B.A. in Psychology from the University of Windsor, and has worked as a leader in Aboriginal health, public education and community engagement over the past decade, and sat as Chair of the Vancouver Technical Secondary Schools’ Parent Advisory Council (PAC), when her daughter Angeline attended this east side school (and VanRamblings alma mater), graduating as an honours student.
Diana has broad support in the community, and in last autumn’s by-election came within only 900 votes of taking a seat on Vancouver School Board.
Diana also has friends who have great things to say about her …

“I have had the privilege of working alongside Diana Day in her capacity as executive on the Vancouver District Parent Advisory Council and want to ask you to save a vote for her as a 2018 COPE Vancouver School Board candidate. Ms. Day is a skilled facilitator with a passion for equity and looking out for our most vulnerable students and families. She brings a warmth and humour to her position while being firm, clear and focused. Diana Day is an effective advocate and an empathetic listener and will make an excellent Trustee.”
— Claudia Ferris, Vancouver District Parent Advisory Council (DPAC) Media Coordinator

The single most frequent issue to come before the Vancouver School Board? Aboriginal education. Funding, resources, preservation or expansion of existing programmes for First Nations students enrolled in the Vancouver school system, liaison with the federal and provincial governments, First Nations student achievement (that while improving continues to be regrettably and woefully low), and protection of the interests of indigenous children enrolled in Vancouver’s school system, among a myriad of other concerns and interests. There is no more passionate and informed advocate of and voice for First Nations students than Diana Day — a vote for COPE Vancouver’s Diana Day on October 14th is an absolute imperative.
All of us need to hear Diana’s voice at the Vancouver School Board table.

Barb Parrott, a veteran BCTF activist & 2018 COPE candidate for Vancouver School Board

A former Vancouver Elementary School Teacher’s Association 1st Vice-President and BCTF Annual General Meeting Chairperson, Barb Parrott has worked her entire adult life in support of public education. In the coming days and weeks, VanRamblings will interview the accomplished Ms. Parrott, and publish the interview on this site. Clearly, as a staunch defender of public education, Ms. Parrot represents a must-vote for Vancouver School Board this upcoming autumn electoral season.
COPE’s 2018 Vancouver Park Board candidates

Former COPE Park Board Chairperson Anita Romaniuk introduces Park Board platform

Flat out, Gwen Giesbrecht — a veteran member and recent Chairperson of the Britannia Community Centre on Vancouver’s eastside — is one of our favourite people on the planet, and the person who during the 2017 Women’s March in Vancouver, when I marched even though I was seemingly at death’s door, helped to define for me all that had occurred with me in the months prior to the march during my arduous, seemingly terminal — and determinedly inoperable — cancer journey, saying to me …

“Raymond, both you and I are opinionated people, and when you’re as opinionated as we are sometimes you get to thinking, ‘People must really hate me.’ But what you’ve discovered these past months is what I discovered only a short while ago — as opinionated as we are, activists in our community respect and even love us. With the 400 persons of conscience, from across the political spectrum, who have come to your aid, clear-headed and strong-minded, and made a difference in your life, giving it a meaning that has sustained you during this very difficult, even tragic, time in your life, perhaps the outpouring of love you’ve felt will not only sustain you during your illness, but give you a new life, and a second chance at life.”

And so it was, as only two months later, my cancer not only went into remission, but disappeared entirely, a miracle (although, I still attend at the B.C. Cancer Agency for MRIs and CT scans, as I will do later this month, and next). Now, what do you think the chances are that I’ll be supporting Ms. Giesbrecht’s bid for a seat on Vancouver Park Board? Just could be that I’ll be talking about little else in the coming months! Vote Gwen Giesbrecht!

Dr. John Irwin, a respected professor of geography at Simon Fraser Univerisity, specializing in sustainable urban development, has sat as a member of COPE’s Parks & Recreation Committee for the past three years, and is one of the architects of the 2018 Park Board platform. Dr. Irwin is a director of the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation (SPEC), a Vancouver environmental organization that protects urban green space and promotes community gardens across the city, and a founding member of the South East False Creek Working Group that helped develop the sustainable community and foreshore park that is now rising along the south shores of False Creek. Dr. Irwin has also worked as a policy analyst for the Tenants Rights Action Coalition and the British Columbia office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
In the coming weeks and months, VanRamblings looks forward to interviewing Dr. Irwin on what he sees as the priorities for the Vancouver Board of Parks & Recreation in the coming term, where he stands on the contentious VanSplash proposal, and on the currently proposed and extremely contentious asphalt bike path the city seems wedded to implementing through Kitsilano Beach Park — both of which issues will come before Park Board next February for final determination.