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COPE/GREEN ALLIANCE MAKES VANCOUVER GAINS
PV Vancouver Bureau
(This article is from the December 1999 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)
VANCOUVER'S NEW PROGRESSIVE civic alliance smashed the Non-Partisan Association's complete monopoly at city hall on Nov. 20, opening the doors for a bigger shake-up in municipal politics in three years. The joint COPE/Green slate won two of ten city council positions, three of nine on School Board, and one of seven on Park Board.
Speaking to a jubilant election night crowd of COPE and Green supporters, newly elected city councillor Tim Louis declared that "this proves there is a god, and that she is a socialist!"
The corporate media had declared NPA incumbent mayor Philip Owen the "winner" even before the campaign began. But COPE/Green mayoralty candidate David Cadman made a strong challenge, taking 33,500 votes to Owen's 51,000. Cadman put the NPA on notice that he and the COPE/Green allies will be back to win in 2002.
Two COPE candidates, Fred Bass and Tim Louis, finished ninth and tenth in the city council race, with most of their slate companions close behind. For the first time in six years, COPE councillors will be able to move and second motions on city council, confronting the NPA majority with issues it has tried to ignore. Louis is a widely-respected former Park Board member; Bass, a Green Party member nominated by COPE, is best known for his campaigns to improve air quality in Vancouver.
In the school board race, COPE's Al Blakey, Allan Wong and Adrienne Montani finished first, second, and ninth, reflecting a powerful wave of parent and teacher anger against the NPA incumbent trustees. The trio are strongly committed to using their positions to help build a broad fightback in defence of public education.
Independent Green candidate Roslyn Cassels was narrowly elected to Park Board, after quitting the COPE/Green slate just days before the election. Cassels benefitted hugely from the COPE/Green campaign, and then scooped up enough extra votes to win from the CIVIC slate, a grouping of council candidates which divided the anti-NPA vote.
COPE/Green's gains came despite being outspent something like ten to one by the NPA, which depends on huge donations from developers, including many of those responsible for Vancouver's famous "leaky condos." There are still no spending limits in civic elections in BC, thanks to the lack of action on this issue by NDP municipal affairs minister Jenny Kwan, a former COPE councillor. Other barriers include the "at large" election system, which forces all candidates to campaign across the entire city of 700,000 people, and the permanent voters' list which effectively disenfranchises thousands of renters and poor people, especially on the east side.
Despite these difficulties, COPE/Green's campaign brought together a wide range of forces, centred on the labour and environmental movements, with backing from many activists in the women's movement, anti-poverty groups, First Nations, the gay community, the political left, and supporters of the public education system. The participation of a large number of young people helped restore the sense of excitement which had been a feature of COPE campaigns in the 1970s and '80s. One result was a jump in voter turnout, from 32% in 1996 to over 36% this time - not enough to bring COPE/Green a majority, but a significant turnaround.
The coalition campaign naturally experienced some frictions as formerly competing groups learned to work together against the NPA and the big developers. But the voting results proved that the progressive civic movement in Vancouver can only continue to grow by building on the unity forged in this campaign.
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