Educate Me on Municipal Politics
I am shamefully ignorant about Vancouver’s municipal politics. Over the years, I’ve paid it very little attention. I have few excuses, except that my interests have always gone from big to small. Which is more compelling, Canada’s policy on the war in Iraq, or surcharges for local waste disposal?
Regardless, there’s an election on November 19 to choose a new mayor and sundry representatives. I found some handy introductory information on the City of Vancouver’s website, but I’d really dig it if somebody could point to or write a brief synopsis of the mayor candidates, their parties and their positions. I’ll take objective evaluations, raging critiques or anything else which will educate me on the who’s-who of the municipal election.
October 24th, 2005 at 7:15 pm
Sorry. I’m just as clueless as you.
October 24th, 2005 at 7:26 pm
Terminal City, The Vancouver Courier, and The Georgia Straight (among others) all provide some degree of coverage of municipal politics. They’ll all be heavily involved in the upcoming campaigns, though the level of bias varies between different writers and papers.
This week’s TC has an article on Sam Sullivan that serves as a prime example.
October 24th, 2005 at 9:52 pm
As the author of the aforementioned article, that “prime example comment leaves me asking, “prime example of what?” ;) That said, Kris Krug’s cover photo of Sully was a big winner. Yes, his rival’s people were just a wee bit envious.
Here’s what’s really important: the mayoral race gets all the attention, but, ironically, the mayor of Vancouver has less power over council than anywhere else in BC. The mayor is one vote out of 11, as opposed to 1 in 5, 7 or 9 in other municipalities in BC.
Sure, he or she will chair the council meetings and get to be as a lead singer is to the rest of the band, but the council composition counts more. This last one was interesting — the dealmakers iun the so-called “COPE lite” crowd, now Vision, usually got their way despite being only four (Larry Campbell, Jim Green, Tim Stevenson, Raymond Louie) of eleven. On some development issues and fiscal issues, they voted with the NPA minority, while on a lot of social matters, city projects such as Woodward’s or the 2nd Avenue RAV station, and issues like laws governing the convesion of single-occupant rooms to other, more expensive units, they voted with the more left-wing COPE members. This year, the NPA is the NPA, the former COPE pragmatists are Vision, and the hardcore COPEsters are still COPE. NPA will, in theiry, be more developer-friendly (although the support seems to be split between Vision and NPA), more hardline on negotiations with city staff, and somewhat more compliant towards the province. That said, Vision understand that they have to play ball with the province too — and both Vision and NPA candidates tend to oppose twinning the Trans-Canada and the Port Mann bridge. Split your ticket as you will.
One of the glaring differences between the big-name mayoral runners is their philosophical apprach to governing, and it’s not centred around the size of government. The size of the city budget would be about the same under either council. Sam Sullivan is a wonk; he likes to formulate policies, and follow them strictly until the end of the policy’s life. Jim Green and friends like to say “let’s make a deal” and make more exceptions, and modify their approach from time to time,or under certain circumstances. The question is which one is more vulnerable to each side’s weakness: sclerosis in Sullivan’s case, incoherency and unintended consequences in Green’s? Answer: hard to tell. And that’s without going over individual splits on how council vote on certain issues. It’s fun, complex, and runs on a lot of different levels.
So, to echo what others would say, trach the three rags mentioned above (although I’m naturally biased toweards TC) and don’t forget Frances Bula’s and Jeff Lee’s reportage in the Sun.
October 25th, 2005 at 12:52 am
I’d like to see more non-aligned seats on the council filled by non-party political virgins. There are a couple indies that I’m intrigued by; one of which is punk bartender ‘wendythirteen’. Yeah, there are flaws, and she’s not a political machine with a huge resume; just raw ideas and energy.
Besides, I really like the visual I get of how council meetings would go with her sitting…
October 25th, 2005 at 2:49 pm
You should vote for Jim Green, because he’s gangsta.
October 25th, 2005 at 4:46 pm
Thank you for posting this. I’ve been wondering the same thing.
October 26th, 2005 at 1:38 pm
It has a little ‘new’ label so maybe it wasn’t there when you posted, but the City website you link to has a link to candidate profiles. It doesn’t help you sort the contenders from the also-rans though.