GATHERING FORCES AGAINST NPA
Labour group tries to thwart vote splits
Could the future of Vancouver’s next civic government be shaped in the longshore union building down near the east Van waterfront?
The Vancouver and District Labour Council, which represents union members working everywhere from the docks to the public service, has long played a role in local politics. The organization helped found city political party COPE 50 years ago, brokered deals between parties going back generations, and for the past decade have thrown its weight behind Vision Vancouver, the dominant party in that time.
But, ahead of this year’s election, the council is trying to broker an arrangement described by political veterans as unprecedented in its scope. They’re working on an “accommodation plan” among five different left-leaning city political parties — including, among other things, an agreement on how many candidates each party runs — with the aim of keeping the traditionally right-leaning Non-Partisan Association from winning power at city hall.
In recent weeks, the council has been meeting in their offices in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union building on Victoria Drive with representatives from Vision Vancouver, the Green Party of Vancouver, OneCity, the Coalition of Progressive Electors ( better known as COPE) and the team working with possible independent candidate Jean Swanson. Last weekend, COPE held a meeting at the Russian Hall in Strathcona, inviting not only their own members, but representatives from the Greens and OneCity, and Swanson, the anti-poverty advocate who ran as an independent in last October’s byelection, finishing second.
At the meeting, the crowd heard a statement from the Labour Council, outlining the basics of the idea that’s been kicked around political circles recently: an “accommodation plan that would facilitate an agreement on how many candidates each (party) will run, and establishing a shared set of values and priorities.”
The Labour Council “is very concerned that the NPA will win the Oct. 20 election in Vancouver if the progressive parties and groups continue to fracture and run more candidates than there are seats on city council, school board and park board,” the meeting was told.
“The NPA win in the October byelection was a clear illustration of the outcome we can expect in October 2018 if there is not co-operation.”
In last October’s byelection, council candidates backed by the four “progressive parties” (with Swanson as a COPE-endorsed independent) earned a combined 66 per cent of the votes cast, losing to the NPA candidate, who earned 27 per cent.
When Postmedia talked to the Labour Council president this week, Stephen Von Sychowski said a repeat of that byelection result “is exactly our worry.”
“Byelections are a different thing, but (2018’s) election has the potential to go the same way, depending on what the playing field of candidates looks like,” Von Sychowski said. “Everyone’s going to make their own decisions at the end of the day and have their own ideas about different issues . ... But I would say there’s more that we have in common ( Vision, Greens, OneCity, COPE and Swanson, and organized labour) than what divides us.”
Senior representatives from all those groups confirmed this week they’ve been in touch with the Labour Council, and are open — to varying degrees — to the idea of an accommodation plan.
Von Sychowski said: “At the end of the day, we want to have a progressive city that is not going to go backwards.”
But NPA Coun. Hector Bremner, who won last year’s byelection and seeks the party’s mayoral nomination for this year, said the Labour Council’s plan itself represents a throwback, to “special interests and the old politics of the 20th century.”
“They’ll change their name, they’ll shuffle the deck chairs, they will personally attack, slander, fearmonger. Whatever it’s going to take to stay in power, that’s what they’re committed to doing,” Bremner said.
“I think people see through it. And I think that’s why, actually, this attempt (among those parties) to coalesce is actually not working very well . ... Green and Vision is the same thing. Then you’ve got COPE and OneCity and these groups, and they come with a very specific, rigid, deeply unco-operative ideology.”
Historically, the Labour Council’s support meant big money through big union donations. But this year’s elections, the first since B.C.’s campaign finance reform banned corporate and union donations, will be different. Still, even without the financial boost of previous years, the Labour Council backing, which includes a mail-out of endorsed candidates’ names to about 50,000 union households in the City of Vancouver, would still have some clout. But how much?
Bremner says it’s huge. Members of left-leaning parties working with the Labour Council are more circumspect, offering answers like “it’s not nothing.”
We may see in October how much clout the Labour Council’s “accommodation plan” could bring.
But first, the coming weeks will show whether they’re even able to get all those parties to the table to hammer something out.
Green and Vision is the same thing. Then you’ve got COPE and OneCity and these groups, and they come with a very specific, rigid, deeply unco-operative ideology.
HECTOR BREMNER, NPA city councillor