According to VanRamblings’ insider politico contacts, Vancouver may be on the verge of a new dawn in municipal political affairs.
Vision Vancouver will be history come November 15th — except at the Board of Education, where Patti Bacchus’ approval ratings are overwhelming — the ascendant Green Party of Vancouver with a near controlling majority, and as many as five New Progressive Association Council candidates set to take a seat around the Council table, this autumn, at Vancouver City Hall.
As VanRamblings posted a couple of weeks back, Adriane Carr remains Vancouver’s most popular politician, so popular in fact that she’d have coattails that would sweep Green Party candidates into the Council chambers in record numbers. According to early election trend polling conducted by Stratcom, for Vision Vancouver, and the NPA’s Dimitri Pantazopoulos, were the Green Party of Vancouver to run six candidates (deemed to be the ideal number, according to enumeration results), five of six of Green Party candidates would win election to Council on voting day.
Although Vancouver’s Greens are currently running a barely-funded, grassroots campaign, when poll results are published in the early fall the, by then, almost empty Green Party coffers are predicted to fill up — donors, from every economic strata, would come out of the woodwork — to the extent that Councillor Adriane Carr and her principled band of Green Party cohorts could consolidate their standings in the polls through election day.
For the well-funded Vision Vancouver and Non-Partisan electoral campaigns, the prospect of a Green Party swell of votes this autumn could be daunting — but it’s not. Why not? At present, the Green Party of Vancouver has nominated only three Council candidates — all three locks for a seat on Vancouver City Council. But as long as the Greens keep their candidate numbers low, although Vision Vancouver Council candidates will lose votes to the Greens, there may be enough votes left over to secure a victory for Vision — the same logic is in operation for the NPA, although Vision will lose more votes to the Greens than will the New Progressive Association.
Make no mistake, as well, a reinvigorated New Progressive Association will emerge in voters’ minds, the NPA as a renewed 21st-century centrist party.
The NPA, with whoever is finally chosen to lead their campaign as mayoral candidate, will run on a progressive platform of hope and change, with truly green and environmentally-friendly policies (not Vision’s greenwashing nonsense); and a worker-friendly platform that should come as no surprise to anyone — as newly-elected Premier Kathleen Wynn did in apologizing for the past mistakes of a Dalton McGuinty-led Liberal party, the NPA will take every opportunity to apologize for the hurt that was caused by Sam’s Strike, as the party commits to negotiating a fair wage settlement for city workers this next term, as well as engendering a renewed respect for a public service that’s been under siege by a vicious Vision Vancouver regime.
Make no mistake, a well-funded New Progressive Association plans to re-establish itself as a powerful political force in our city, in the months, weeks and days leading up to the November 15th municipal election.
Combine the NPA’s newfound power with the populism of, an ascendant, Green Party of Vancouver platform built on transparency and respect for the voters (also key components of the NPA campaign), come the evening of November 15th, the Vancouver electorate may finally be delivered from the anti-democratic, non-consultative, and community-dismissive policies of an arrogant and polarizing Vision Vancouver civic administration — Vancouver’s fatally flawed party of wrong — as a new and hope-filled era in Vancouver municipal political affairs takes hold at Vancouver City Hall.
