WINDS OF CHANGE?
Bremner wins byelection
Vancouver’s first civic byelection in 25 years revealed a rising sense of frustration among the public, according to both upstart politicians and longtime rivals who gained ground on the reigning Vision Vancouver party — as well as Vision’s own mayor.
It may be hard to draw too many conclusions about what the weekend’s results mean for next year’s general municipal election, considering the byelection drew only a 10.99 per cent voter turnout to fill one council seat and nine school board positions.
But on Sunday, several candidates agreed the results suggest Vancouver’s political landscape, largely dominated by two parties over the last decade, could become more diverse after October 2018, when voters will elect a city council, park board, school board and mayor.
The Non-Partisan Association, the long-established party that’s been Vision’s main opposition in recent years, succeeded Saturday in getting candidate Hector Bremner elected to fill the council seat vacated by former Vision councillor Geoff Meggs.
The byelection showed the public’s frustration with Vision after almost a decade of “inaction” on issues like housing affordability, Bremner said Sunday.
Political observers talked, both before and after the council byelection, about the city’s left-leaning vote being split between three progressive candidates: the Green party’s Pete Fry, OneCity’s Judy Graves and Jean Swanson, an independent.
But each of those three earned more votes than Vision candidate Diego Cardona, who finished fifth.
Vision was established 12 years ago and has been the city’s governing party for most of the last decade, with the last three municipal elections bringing victories for Vision’s mayoral candidate Gregor Robertson and three Vision-majority councils.
But many voters now believe Vision has under-delivered, a sentiment Robertson himself highlighted in an emailed statement after the byelection.
“Vancouverites are frustrated — particularly around housing affordability — and they expect more from us. We’re working hard to deliver solutions, but last night’s results show us there’s much more work to do,” said Robertson. “I heard that message loud and clear, and our party heard that message loud and clear.”
The support earned by Graves, Fry and particularly Swanson was noteworthy. Swanson, a longtime anti-poverty activist from well outside the world of mainstream big-party politics, finished second, with her 10,263 votes trailing Bremner’s 13,372, but enough to make it a respectably close race and roughly double the votes cast for Vision’s Cardona.
Though disappointed she didn’t win, Swanson said she was pleased to see Vancouverites are ready to vote for an activist candidate, “in the direction of justice. Not just any old change, but a revolution at city hall.”
OneCity, a party established in 2014, reached a milestone with the byelection, seeing a candidate elected to office for the first time. New OneCity school board trustee Carrie Bercic said the party will carry the momentum of her win into 2018.
The school board byelection, which was required after the entire school board was fired last year for failing to pass a balanced budget, resulted in a mixed group with OneCity’s Bercic joined by two trustees from the NPA, three from Vision, and three Greens.
The three Green school board candidates, Judy Zaichkowsky, Janet Fraser, and Estrellita Gonzalez, finished first, second and third in the byelection.
Zaichkowsky said the Greens’ success on the school board, combined with the support shown to OneCity, the independent Swanson, and the Green party’s Fry, who finished third in the council race, send “a huge signal that it is no longer a two-party system.”