Fortunes have fallen for powerhouse parties
Surrey First has seen wave of defections; Vision Vancouver is fielding rookies
As you’d imagine, the mayoral candidates for Vision Vancouver and Surrey First say their respective parties are as strong as ever, and reinvigorated with a slate of new candidates.
But beyond the old axiom that the longer a political party is in power, the harder it is for them to win, the parties that have run B.C.’s two largest cities for the past decade enter this fall’s elections with their own additional challenges.
Vision Vancouver and Surrey First came to power in their respective cities in 2008. That was way back when the benchmark price of a detached home in Greater Vancouver was $666,525, according to Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver data. It’s now $1,588,400, if you were wondering.
The two parties have elected mayors and council majorities in the last three successive elections.
Surrey First has been especially dominant, sweeping to complete control of city council in the 2011 and 2014 elections. But this year, after the announcement from Surrey Mayor Linda Hepner (who co-founded Surrey First in 2007 with then-Mayor Dianne Watts) that she wouldn’t seek a second term, the party has seen a wave of public defections from sitting councillors.
In June, Surrey First Coun. Bruce Hayne announced he was leaving the party, telling Postmedia News at the time that he was unhappy with the job city council had done engaging Surrey citizens on issues like crime, housing and transit.
Hayne, who’s now running for mayor with the upstart Surrey Integrity Now party, was followed last month by Coun. Barbara Steele — another founding member of Surrey First — who announced she was resigning from the party, issuing a press release saying: “It has become clear that philosophically I can no longer be a part of Surrey First.”
And this week brought the departure of a third Surrey First councillor, when Coun. Dave Woods declared he too was leaving the party, telling the Surrey Now-Leader he “cannot support a team leader who doesn’t value or seek consultation of team members,” after Surrey First mayoral candidate and current Coun. Tom Gill indicated his support for a ban on handguns.
On Friday, Gill said he believes, “without hesitation,” that the departure of Hayne, Steele, and Woods had left Surrey First in stronger shape than before.
Further, Gill said Friday, “there will be absolutely no further departures.”
Surrey First will unveil its full slate of candidates in early September, Gill said, adding: “I think I’ve got the right team.”
Meanwhile, Vision Vancouver hasn’t seen dramatic defections like their counterparts on the other side of the Fraser River. But the party that’s run Vancouver for the past decade will enter this year’s election with lower polling numbers and without many of their best-known figures.
Even before Mayor Gregor Robertson announced in January that he wouldn’t seek a fourth term, high-profile Coun. Andrea Reimer — once considered a possible Vision mayoral successor to Robertson — had already announced she wouldn’t run again, and Coun. Geoff Meggs, a founding member of Vision, had vacated his council seat last year to take a job as Premier John Horgan’s chief of staff.
Shauna Sylvester, a Vision board member from 2009 to 2011, was at one time rumoured as a possible mayoral candidate to run for Vision after Robertson. But when Sylvester announced her candidacy in April of this year, she chose to run as an independent, seemingly distancing herself from Vision and emphasizing she hadn’t been involved with the party in years.
Other veteran Vision stalwarts — Raymond Louie, Tim Stevenson, Kerry Jang — all announced they were stepping away at the end of the term, but unlike the trio of Surrey First councillors who quit their party, the Vision councillors didn’t publicly disavow their party, and they’re all still supporting the team. Still, with Heather Deal as the sole Vision incumbent running for reelection out of the six councillors and a mayor elected last time, that means Vision is fielding a team of rookies.
But although Vision mayoral candidate Ian Campbell acknowledged the slate he’s leading into October’s election is “pretty much a brand new team,” he said Friday: “that’s actually, in my opinion, a real strength for us to reinvigorate the city and reinvigorate the party.”
Campbell said he’s grateful for the support of the exiting Vision councillors, “to make sure our message is one of transition, transference, succession, continuing some stability and growth and continuity. People want change, but they also want stability and certainty.”
In several B.C. cities, the power long held by the biggest municipal parties has been severely limited by the new campaign finance rules brought in by the provincial NDP. And it’s natural for any organization to go through ups and downs, as members and leaders come and go.
But for Vision and Surrey First, are we seeing things fall apart? Can the centre (or centre-left, or centre right) hold?
The two parties have elected mayors and council majorities in the last three successive elections.