Independent candidates seek progressive support
One new possible independent Vancouver mayoral candidate has begun considering a run this week, while another has made it official.
Shauna Sylvester, executive director of the Simon Fraser University Centre for Dialogue, launched her campaign with an event Thursday morning, announcing she’s running for mayor in this October’s election.
Sylvester, a former Vision Vancouver board member, has said she’s running as an independent, and hopes to gain the support of Vision as well as the city’s other left-leaning parties. The city’s left-leaning parties have been in talks for months about the idea of collaborating to support a single mayoral candidate to improve their chances of beating the Non-Partisan Association’s nominee this fall.
Vision Vancouver released a statement Wednesday saying it is not yet ruling out the possibility of running a mayoral candidate under the Vision banner, but it is also looking at possibly collaborating with other parties to support either an independent candidate or one running for another party.
Another possible candidate has been suggested by representatives of the Coalition of Progressive Electors, or COPE, the city’s oldest leftwing party. COPE co-chair Connie Hubbs said Wednesday that while no decisions had yet been made ahead of the party’s nomination meeting in June, “discussions are happening” between COPE and Patrick Condon, a professor of urban design at UBC School Of Architecture And Landscape Architecture.
Hubbs said Condon “has expressed a positive interest in exploring the possibility and we are excited about this possibility too.” She described him as “one of the top go-to analysts on transit policy, (with) some innovative ideas to create affordable housing for the people of Vancouver.”
Reached Wednesday, Condon said he was “surprised and honoured” to have recently received a call from COPE representatives asking if he’d be interested in running for mayor. Asked if he was considering a mayoral campaign, he said: “It’s hard not to consider it, if people have that kind of confidence in you.”
Condon said he didn’t want to run “as a declared partisan,” but could be interested in being the independent “unity candidate” supported by the progressive parties, which he defined as “essentially everybody but the NPA.” Asked if he would consider running with the support of the further left-leaning groups like COPE against a candidate backed by centre-left parties such as Vision, Condon said he had no interest in fracturing the progressive vote.
“That doesn’t appeal to me,” Condon said. “That would be a nightmare.”