Wild days in Vancouver mayoral race
Two more contenders emerge to contest Stewart, a full 18 months ahead of election
After the recent flurry of major news related to the Vancouver mayoral race, you could be forgiven for asking yourself: It can't be election time again already, can it?
You would be correct, too: No one is heading to the polls any time soon.
The next municipal election is set for October 2022 — still a full year and a half away — but for whatever reason, this month has seen a series of big announcements from men seeking to take Mayor Kennedy Stewart's job.
And while it seems likely the final ballot next year will be different than how the race appears today, the centre lane is looking especially crowded at the present moment.
Wednesday brought a pair of competing announcements from contenders for the mayor's seat. The city's newest party, called A Better City, launched Wednesday morning, soon followed by local businessman Ken Sim confirming he hoped to be their inaugural mayoral nominee. Coincidentally, the same day, longtime political operative Mark Marissen also announced his intention to come out from behind the scenes to run for the first time as a candidate.
Both of those announcements followed last week's surprise from the Non-Partisan Association, as Vancouver's oldest political party declared three-term NPA park board commissioner John Coupar as their mayoral nominee for next year — much to the surprise of many, including, apparently, the NPA's four elected councillors, at least one or two of whom had been considering seeking the party's mayoral nomination themselves.
And Stewart, the incumbent, was the first to officially declare his intention to seek re-election, all the way back in 2019.
Marissen has worked on dozens of political campaigns at all levels, including the federal Liberals and B.C. Liberals. But the last time he himself was elected was as student council vice-president when he was in Grade 12.
Asked why he wants to now make the shift to being a candidate, Marissen said he believes he can build a broad coalition to help the city tackle the crises it faces, while both Stewart on the left and the NPA on the right are “playing the politics of polarization.”
At the municipal level, Marissen helped create a new party called YES Vancouver before the 2018 election and steered the campaign of their mayoral candidate, former NPA councillor Hector Bremner.
YES Vancouver ran a slate of council, park board and school board candidates alongside Bremner in 2018, and although none of them were elected, the party is still a going concern. Marissen said YES Vancouver will be rebranding later this year, and he hopes to seek the party's mayoral nomination, under their new name, through an open process early next year.
Meanwhile, A Better City also launched Wednesday, unveiling a 12-person board of directors and their plans to hold an open process for their mayoral nomination in October of this year, followed by a six-month process to select council, park- and schoolboard candidates.
Ken Sim, the NPA's 2018 mayoral candidate who has since distanced himself from the party stating concerns about its current board, said he hopes to win A Better City's mayoral nod through an open, transparent process.
Looking ahead to next year, it's already looking like a crowded field.
If Marissen, Coupar and Sim all were vying for the NPA nomination to run next year under the party banner, that would likely be a tougher opposition for the incumbent Stewart. All three of those candidates running separately probably seems like a less daunting contest to Stewart.
Up until the past decade, the NPA dominated Vancouver politics for most of the past century, largely by being the political home of the city's centrist and right-leaning voters, appealing to both federal Liberals and Tories.
But if Coupar runs next year against both Sim and Marissen — two other centrist candidates who in previous years might have found themselves inside the NPA tent — that will lead to “significant vote-splitting,” said Alex Shiff, a communications consultant with Navigator Ltd. and political commentator.
The NPA brand recognition and Coupar's profile guarantee him a substantial number of votes, but he, Sim and Marissen “are going to be fishing in a very similar pond,” Shiff said. “And as we have it right now, Kennedy Stewart is the lone candidate on the left ... Certainly the race on the centre-right is looking much more crowded.”
Of course, Shiff said, it's entirely possible that Stewart could face another challenger or two on the left between now and next year.
Two possibilities there could be current third-term Green Coun. Adriane Carr or former three-term Vision Vancouver Coun. Andrea Reimer, each of whom, separately, told Postmedia this week that people have been asking them about a possible mayoral run next year, and they “have not ruled it out.”
“I haven't ruled it out, but 18 months out is way too early for people to be thinking about elections,” Reimer said. “What the city needs most is good governance and as we've seen it's not an easy thing. This mayor and council don't need the distraction of premature electioneering.”