A TELLING BYELECTION
Affordability was dominant issue
If you can read anything in the tea leaves of a civic byelection where just 11 per cent of voters elected a single councillor, maybe it’s that Vancouverites appear to have an appetite for big, disruptive change on housing.
Consider the top two finishers: one from the right-of-centre establishment party, and the other a hard-left activist from outside the mainstream, who together combined for about half of all ballots cast and both campaigned on boldly attacking the housing crisis.
The main campaign message from the victor, the NPA’s Hector Bremner, was focused on supply, supply, supply. Bremner wants to see sweeping zoning changes to allow “gentle density” in singlefamily neighbourhoods. Meanwhile, runner-up Jean Swanson ran a campaign focusing — as she has in her decades as a social justice advocate — on the unequal distribution of wealth. Among other things, Swanson proposed a “mansion tax” to draw extra property taxes from the city’s most expensive homes.
Swanson captured 21 per cent of the vote, a strong showing for an independent candidate, which observers on the right and the left of the city’s political establishment pointed to as the story of the election.
And Bremner, after winning with 27 per cent of the vote, told Postmedia: “We were able to break through because we actually offered a really bold solution ... I don’t think anybody’s ever run on a message like mine before.”
Indeed, former six-term NPA Coun. Gordon Price wrote on his blog Monday that Bremner and Swanson’s main byelection campaign promises “not long ago would have been unthinkable policies in any serious party platform.”
Though disappointed she didn’t win the seat, Swanson was glad to see her social justice campaign captured the public’s support, and she believed proposals like the mansion tax “set the agenda” for the byelection.
There was some overlap between Swanson’s platform and that of OneCity candidate Judy Graves — as there was also likely overlap in the voter pool, with some progressives torn over which of the two local anti-poverty icons to support. And if even half of the votes cast for Graves had gone to Swanson, it would have been enough to topple the NPA’s Bremner. Graves, Vancouver’s former advocate for the homeless, also proposed a similar “luxury surtax” on Vancouver’s most valuable homes.
But Green candidate Pete Fry, who finished third between Swanson and Graves, criticized them both for focusing on housing measures outside the civic government’s power. Before the byelection, Fry said that while he was sympathetic to the intention of a mansion tax, it couldn’t be done without action from senior governments. Fry wanted, he said, to focus on things “right here and right now in our city with things we can actually do,” including preserving purposebuilt rental housing and fixing the definition of affordable housing to local incomes, not market rates.
Before the byelection, Graves and Fry said that regardless of the results, they planned to run again in Vancouver’s October 2018 general election. On Sunday, after the byelection, Swanson said she hadn’t ruled out another run next year.
The particular dynamic of the byelection, with nine contenders vying for a single seat, is markedly different than next year’s election, where voters can vote for up to 10 councillors. That means, in theory, a left-leaning, progressive-minded voter could support Swanson, Graves, Fry (assuming they all run again), and Adriane Carr (the sole current Green councillor and the last municipal election’s top vote-winner), and still have another six votes to spread between Vision, NPA, OneCity or possibly other independents.
The weekend byelection was a disappointment, if not a shock, for the reigning Vision party, with candidate Diego Cardona finishing a distant fifth. Mayor Gregor Robertson said, in an emailed statement, the results showed “Vancouverites are frustrated — particularly around housing affordability — and they expect more from us.”
During Vision’s time in power, Vancouver’s housing crisis has worsened, and this year, the city launched a 10-year plan dubbed the “housing reset” attempting to tackle it.
Several “housing reset” policies are working their way through council this fall. The measures are presented as a mix of measures to address both the supply side of the equation (like adding density to single-family neighbourhoods) as well as demand, (like the motion set to be introduced by Robertson this week, concerning prioritizing local buyers for condo pre-sales).
NPA Coun. George Affleck said Monday he didn’t so much object to Robertson’s motion, but its announcement — coming a week before a byelection Vision was expected to lose and a year before an election that could be tough — had more to do with politics than affordability.
“If the mayor cared so much about this, where was he nine years ago?” Affleck asked. “Eight years ago? Seven years ago? Six years ago, five, four, three, two?”
With the countdown on now to next year’s election, the challenge facing Robertson and Vision — as much as they’ve tried this year to emphasize the “housing reset” — might be encapsulated in Affleck’s question, and similar ones from voters, especially if frustrations and unaffordability continue to mount.