Vision Vancouver Mayoral candidate, Ian Campbell, is asking for your vote in 2018
On June 7th, Vision Vancouver — the ruling party at Vancouver City Hall for the past 10 years — announced that Squamish Nation hereditary Chief Ian Campbell, had been selected as the party’s 2018 Mayoral nominee.
The following morning, Mr. Campbell visited the downtown Vancouver studios of CBC Radio One, where he was interviewed by respected broadcast journalist Stephen Quinn, the host of Vancouver’s top-rated morning news and information radio show, The Early Edition. The entirety of the often contentious interview is available in the video directly below.
CBC Radio One Early Edition interview with Vision Vancouver Mayoral candidate, Ian Campbell
At the 7 minute,15 second mark of the interview, Mr. Quinn queries Ian Campbell on his thoughts on the implementation of a so-called Mansion Tax, a plank in the platform of Coalition of Progressive Electors’ City Council candidate, Jean Swanson, while also querying Mr. Campbell on the efficacy of the provincial New Democratic party government’s new School Surtax.
As you’ll hear upon listening to the interview, despite Stephen Quinn asking the question of Mr. Campbell several times as to whether he supported both the Mansion Tax and the School Surtax, Vision Vancouver Mayoral candidate Ian Campbell obfuscated on the question, refusing to give Mr. Quinn anything close to what might be considered an adequate reply to a 2018 Vancouver civic election issue of some contention, and an issue that all of Vancouver’s progressive, left-of-centre parties — OneCity Vancouver, the Green Party of Vancouver, and the Coalition of Progressive Electors, save perhaps Mr. Campbell’s own party, Vision Vancouver — will run on.
Perhaps, the individual who was most exorcised by Ian Campbell’s refusal to answer Stephen Quinn’s direct question on the Mansion Tax and the School Surtax was CBC reporter Justin McElroy …
At this point, we’ll say that Vision Vancouver Mayoral aspirant Ian Campbell will have to do a much better job of answering questions put to him by reporters during the course of the next four months — VanRamblings notes, in passing, that it is four months to the day today when Vancouver voters will go to the polls to elect our city’s next Mayor and City Council.
During this next four month period, Ian Campbell will have to make it abundantly clear as to which side he is on, whether he supports the initiatives being placed before voters by his coalition One City / Green / COPE partners, and whether he’s ready to build the city that we all need.
The City We Need? A Vancouver that is defined by social justice, most certainly, but a city as well that is committed to building thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of homes — as independent Mayoral candidate, UBC professor of urban affairs, Patrick Condon is advocating for: housing co-ops, land trusts, owned homes on city land leases, and all forms of non-market housing, towards the creation of an affordable housing city for all, where 50% of homes in Vancouver will be designated as social housing, as Mr. Condon has explicated, and is often referred to as the Vienna Model.
Vancouver is situated on unceded / stolen Coast Salish territory
Each time we write about Ian Campbell on VanRamblings, the same issue is raised by our readers — and some friends and associates — to wit: “Ian Campbell lives in North Vancouver. He’s not even a Vancouver resident.”
The answer to the erroneous charge: take a look at the graphic above, Vancouver is situated on the ancestral lands of the Coast Salish peoples, and in the case of Vancouver, in Squamish Nations territory. Let’s be clear: we in Vancouver are settlers. More than 200 years ago, we stole the lands on which we live from our indigenous peoples, no treaty was ever signed with the Squamish Nation, nor any other First Nations peoples in British Columbia, the Squamish Nation did not relinquish their sovereignty over their land — which, as I point out above, Vancouver is situated on.
To say that Ian Campbell is not a “resident” of Vancouver must be seen as a failure to acknowledge Squamish Nation sovereignty over the lands we call home, and that we are interlopers living on stolen land, resident in Vancouver only by the good graces of the Squamish Nation peoples.
Let us hope, once and for all, that the issue of Ian Campbell’s “residency” is finally put to rest, that we acknowledge Squamish Nation hereditary Chief Ian Campbell is offering his Vision Vancouver candidacy as Mayor of our city on lands that are his ancestral lands, and that he has every right to bring his name forward, and ask for the support of the Vancouver electorate in the crucial 2018 civic election on election day, Saturday, October 20th.
Final note: Should Ian Campbell garner the support of the Vancouver & District Labour Council as the VDLC’s choice for the next Mayor of our city, VanRamblings will enthusiastically support Mr. Campbell’s candidacy, and will do all in our power to see that he becomes our next Mayor. In the interim — all of the first part of today’s column aside, which is not meant as an attack on Ian Campbell’s good name, nor on his unrivaled contribution to the livability of our city, but rather is issued as a plea for clarity from Mr. Campbell as to the tenets of his campaign for the office of Mayor …
VanRamblings continues to believe that Ian Campbell would make a fine Mayor for our city, that not only is Ian Campbell a man of much erudition and accomplishment, but that he is as well possessed of a humane and caring manner, and way of bringing himself to the world, and that he is a humble man of character, integrity, much wit & good humour, with a ready, warm, genuine, engaging and reassuring smile — and dare we say grace — and a man worthy and deserving of your consideration in the coming days and weeks ahead in this civic election season as, perhaps, Vancouver’s next Mayor, and the man to lead our beloved city by the sea into the future.
