MAJORITY NOT THE ONLY PATH TO POWER IN FALL ELECTION
Politicians prepare for possible minority, collaborative city council in next term
Vancouver's last election gave the city its first council in decades where no single party enjoyed a majority. This October's election could produce another mixed council — and some appear to be planning for that result already.
It seems that while candidates and parties on the left side of the political spectrum are competing, they're also communicating across party lines before the Oct. 15 election, setting up what they hope will be a collaborative council afterwards.
The candidate with the most council experience, third-term Green Coun. Adriane Carr, said people seem to be getting their heads around the idea that a mixed-party council can get things done.
Carr served two terms on Vision Vancouver-majority councils, between 2011 and 2018, and found it was “a very different atmosphere around the council table.”
“A majority party treats themselves like they don't really need to consult with anyone,” she said. “They hold all the cards, they hold power, and don't have to be collaborative.”
The current mixed-party council has been criticized for long, inefficient meetings, bogged down by councillors from different parties interrupting each other. CBC journalist Justin McElroy reported in November that while most Metro Vancouver municipalities had three or fewer meetings last year exceeding four hours, Vancouver had 42. That means Vancouver had almost as many marathon meetings as the other 20 Metro municipalities combined, including big cities like Burnaby and Surrey.
Still, Carr says: “For me, I think it's better for politics, it's better for democracy, when there is the necessity for collaboration and those who are elected have to rise to that challenge.”
Carr was considering challenging Mayor Kennedy Stewart this year for the top job. When she announced in early April she would instead seek a fourth council term, she told Postmedia News the risk of vote-splitting on the left was a factor in her decision.
At that time, former Non-Partisan Association Coun. George Affleck commented on Twitter that barring another left-of-centre mayoral candidate's entry, “this election will be a cakewalk” for Stewart, because of too many candidates “splitting the right.”
None of the announced mayoral candidates describe themselves as right-wing, but there are currently four expected to compete for right-of-centre voters: the NPA's John Coupar, TEAM for a Livable Vancouver's Colleen Hardwick, ABC Vancouver's Ken Sim, and Progress Vancouver's Mark Marissen.
Without the NPA's long-established base, Affleck said, “winning is very, very, very unlikely” for any centre-right candidate.
TEAM's Hardwick was elected with the NPA in 2018. Councillors Rebecca Bligh, Lisa Dominato, Sarah Kirby-Yung, also elected with the NPA, announced in April their plan to run with ABC Vancouver, whose mayoral nominee Sim was the NPA candidate in the last election. This would seem to suggest those ex-NPA candidates' and their upstart parties will compete with the NPA this year for some of the same voters.
Hardwick has said TEAM's goal is a council majority — meaning at least six council members — and Sim has said the same about ABC. The NPA is expected to unveil its slate soon, and it seems likely the party will try to elect at least five councillors along with Coupar as mayor for its own majority.
But the left-leaning parties that have unveiled slates so far seem to be planning for a mixed council instead of aiming for a majority: The Greens are running five council candidates, while COPE, OneCity and Vision have four each.
Stewart's new party, called Forward Together, will unveil its own council candidates soon. Executive director Mark Hosak said the party's plan is to endorse or run as many as six council candidates who “support the mayor's vision,” adding “the key word there is endorse and/or run.”
So it sounds as if Stewart might run alongside a few council candidates under his Forward Together banner, while endorsing council candidates from other parties that he views as like-minded allies.
Vision Vancouver, which ran the city for a decade with three consecutive majorities before being wiped out in 2018, is seeking a comeback. Vision announced Monday that its membership had decided not to run a mayoral candidate this year, and is running four council candidates: former B.C. Non-Profit Housing Association CEO and author Kishone Roy, communications professional Lesli Boldt, medical professional Honieh Barzegari, and current park board chair Stuart Mackinnon, who recently left the Green party to seek a council nomination with Vision.
Meanwhile, the Vancouver and District Labour Council, a union organization that worked to get out the vote for Stewart and a slate of council candidates in 2018, is considering which candidates it will endorse this year.
The labour council has already endorsed Stewart for re-election along with five incumbent councillors: Carr and fellow Greens Pete Fry and Michael Wiebe, OneCity Coun. Christine Boyle and COPE Coun. Jean Swanson. That means the eight confirmed new candidates running with those three parties, along with however many council candidates Forward Together nominates, will compete for the Labour Council's remaining five endorsements, which are expected to be announced in June.
President Stephen von Sychowski said the labour council is “not looking at” NPA, ABC or Progress Vancouver candidates.
In September, the labour council said it would not endorse Vision candidates, with von Sychowski saying, “The progressive political spectrum is already well represented by an array of parties. We don't see an attempted return for Vision being constructive to our objective of ensuring a strong, cohesive progressive majority.”
Recently, von Sychowski said the council's position has not changed on Vision, adding: “When the dust settles after Oct. 15, we hope for an even stronger progressive majority.”