#vanelxn Debrief
It’s hard to believe that the election was an entire week ago. Luckily though I handed in my thesis on Friday, so regular blogging can resume again.
A lot has already been written about the Vancouver election, and I just thought I’d summarize my thoughts here quickly in a feature of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.
The Good
The best news for me was the Burnaby Citizen’s Association’s sweep of everything. Derek Corrigan seems to know how to run a progressive city and has a competent team. While I wouldn’t normally be too concerned with how Burnaby was being run, it was very heartening to see Parents’ Voice and their homophobia be soundly rejected by the city. Good job.
Gregor Robertson soundly defeated Suzanne Anton. While there are legitimate criticisms of Robertson, Anton’s “common sense” platform was anything but. Furthermore, Robertson’s first moves after the election were to continue on his commitment to ending homelessness with the announcement of more homeless shelters.
It was also good to see a progressive majority. Vision handily won every seat they contested and will have little difficulty doing whatever they want in the next three years, which is generally positive for the city. The Vancouver School Board is definitely in good hands.
I was happy to see Adriane Carr make it in as Vancouver’s lone Green councillor. I won’t agree with everything she says, but her voice will provide a strong balance if Vision gets away from its roots.
Finally, it was good to see a strong showing by Sandy Garossino and Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver. While not close to winning, they did well for being outside the establishment, and represent a glimmer of hope for some progressive alternatives in the next election.
The Bad
COPE was badly defeated. We lost almost everything except for Alan Wong’s seat on the School Board. It’s not clear to me if we lost many votes or if more people just turned out and only voted for Vision. Clearly the COPE-Vision coalition will need to be questioned. This story is likely far from over.
Voter turnout, despite a slight increase, is still embarrassingly low. Two-in-three people don’t care about how their city is being run, and that’s sad.
The Ugly
The finger pointing started within hours of the election results.
Sean Bickerton criticized his party, the NPA, for running a nasty and bitter campaign. Others said they needed more bitterness.
Tim Louis quickly blamed the coalition deal and COPE’s leadership. David Cadman blamed Tim Louis for knocking him off the ballot. Others blamed the leadership for blocking Tim Louis with RJ Aquino. Some suggestions were made that Vision didn’t promote COPE enough (despite evidence to the contrary and the fact that it’s not their job). Almost no one has been willing to take any responsibility on their own. For my own part, I didn’t canvass nearly as much as I’d hoped. People need to start setting aside their egos and begin work figuring out the goals of COPE and how to accomplish them.
Ian votes in Vancouver
Because Saturday is municipal election day in Vancouver, it’s the week of announcing everyone’s slates, and I don’t intend to break that trend.
Before I state who I’ll be voting for in Vancouver, I want to highlight a couple other worthy candidates in the Lower Mainland.
I’m not too familiar with Burnaby’s politics, but Derek Corrigan’s Burnaby Citizens’ Association has kept Burnaby as one of the best run cities in Canada according to Maclean’s magazine. More importantly though, I strongly urge everyone in Burnaby to vote for the BCA slate for School Board to block any religious homophobic candidates from Parents’ Voice from getting elected. The anti-homophobic bullying policy they recently passed needs a strong voice to continue its implementation to ensure that LGBTQ students feel safe in their schools.
In New Westminster, Humanist Canada’s 2011 Humanist of the Year Lorrie Williams is standing for re-election to council. Vote for her.
Now, on to the main show.
#ndpldr Paul Dewar in Vancouver
I should note first that Nathan Cullen, a BC MP and NDP leadership candidate will be meeting tonight at 5pm at The Greedy Pig on Cordova St. I’m still trying to decide if I’ll go or if I need a break from running between events. I have said a few words before about Cullen’s proposals.
After meeting Thomas Mulcair last week, last night I raced around Vancouver and got to meet NDP leadership candidates Paul Dewar and Peggy Nash. Last night was a busy evening as I ran from SFU in Burnaby to King Edward Village (at Knight and Kingsway) for a meeting with Paul Dewar to the Railway Club downtown for Peggy Nash’s event.
My best advice is that you shouldn’t try to do this. After each of these events I like time to sit and collect my thoughts and impressions about the candidate, but this time I was running from one event to the other and only just made it in time for Nash’s speech. Luckily, I grabbed a video of Dewar and the audio of Nash (the lighting in pubs is too poor for good video) so you and I can review their speeches today.
My initial impressions though are that Paul Dewar quite exceeded my expectations, while Peggy Nash was a bit underwhelming. Since I have quite a bit to say, I’ll cover Paul Dewar first and post about Peggy Nash’s event in a subsequent post.
This is perhaps mostly because I wasn’t sure what to expect from Dewar. I’ve never really heard him speak, and I had partially written him off after being disappointed by his religious views. Yet last night he came off smart, articulate, friendly, and focussed on issues. Unlike Thomas Mulcair who cruised the bar quickly, shaking hands but failing to really connect with anyone, Dewar seemed genuinely interested in everyone he spoke to.
When he spoke to issues about how to promote social democratic values, he talked about the need to promote positive policies that will prove that social democracy is good for the economy. His example, dear to my heart as a masters of science student, was our current (and arguably failing) approach of giving research tax credits to industry. He says we should instead be looking to places with better success, like the German model of investing in public research institutions.
He also suggested establishing a national green energy grid to get renewable electricity efficiently across the country. I could see some federal-provincial conflict here, but I think it’s better to be too visionary than too cautious here.
In the question and answers he was also asked about the Israel-Palestine issue. As foreign affairs critic, Dewar had little trouble establishing a firm and respectable position. He fully supports a two-state solution established peacefully. Canada’s role, he argued, was to start doing our parts again, and to act as a leader to other countries. By getting each country to do a little bit, he says the peace process will get moving again. Specifically, our part involves reinvesting in the UNRWA who help out on the ground in Palestine and by supporting refugee programs – both things Canada used to do.
He was also asked about growing the party, to which he didn’t just give platitudes about the grassroots, but called for more on the ground organizers, and constituency associations in every riding.
The event organizers basically had to cut him off from taking more questions, but he also answered a question about the Occupy protests. He says New Democrats get the protests and should fight not just for tax fairness, but tax justice. He ruled out any sales tax increases and promised to recover money from tax havens. He was also asked about his position on unions in the NDP, to which he said they are an important part as unions helped form the NDP, but that union values are also NDP values and that the NDP needs to fight for those rights (pensions, labour laws, etc.) for everyone. Finally, federal NDP candidate Meena Wong asked about how to increase diversity in the party, to which Dewar responded that we need to keep reaching out in the same way that Jack Layton and Olivia Chow reached out to her.
Also in the audience was Sheryl Palm, wife of MP Don Davies (who was in the air during the meeting). She said she hadn’t made up her mind, but lived so close to the event that it was worth checking out.
I will finally mention that the event had a very diverse audience with young and old, and a mix of ethnicities. It may have just been partially a function of the area, but it was definitely a promising mix.
Paul Dewar will be back in Vancouver on November 20th and will be speaking for my riding, Vancouver-Quadra at the NDP constituency association AGM.
Here’s the video of his speech:
#ndpldr Is Quebec the key?
First, I’m going to try to tag the titles of future posts about the NDP leadership race with #ndpldr. This way if you don’t care you can skip over or if you do you can perk up. It also makes the posts a bit more obvious when they get posted to Twitter.
The quick question I want to consider this morning is this standard media narrative that whoever wins the NDP leadership must appease Quebec first and foremost.
The standard line of thought is that since the NDP elected 59 MPs in Quebec in May, that they will need a leader who is popular in Quebec and will win over the francophone vote to hold Fortress Layton. The argument is not without merit, the Quebec caucus counts for over half of the total NDP seats, but I still think it is misguided.
Poll numbers and Threehundredeight’s seat projections are starting to suggest that the NDP has reached a ceiling in Quebec. It’s possible that they may squeak a bit higher, but even the Conservatives have trouble breaking 60% in Alberta. Sure 60% will give you all but one seat, but there’s only 75 seats in Quebec. A gain of 15% in Quebec would translate to 10-12 more seats in total while potentially risking seats in BC and Alberta to Western isolationism.
In the next election there will be 30 new MPs. 3 of these MPs will come from Quebec while 27 will be scattered across BC, Alberta, and Ontario. If the NDP wants to form the next government, they need to win these provinces. Ontario alone will account for over 1/3 of the seats in the country.
The NDP currently has no seats in Saskatchewan despite winning 32% of the vote there. Meanwhile they only have 35 seats in BC, Alberta, and Ontario combined (minus one vacated by Jack Layton, RIP). In 2014 these four provinces will total 211 seats.
Whoever wants to be the next prime minister doesn’t need to win Quebec. He or she needs to be able to hold the majority of those seats, but also needs to reach out strongly to the West.
The NDP was born in the West, now it’s time to take it back.
Paul Dewar ALSO in Vancouver Thursday
For those who can’t get enough of NDP leadership candidates, Thursday looks like a good day to live in Vancouver.
I just found the Facebook event for Paul Dewar’s planned appearance at King Edward Village (Knight and Kingsway) at 5:30 PM.
This event is scheduled to wrap up just before Peggy Nash makes her appearance at the Railway Club downtown at 7:00 PM.
Nash has been tweeting from Occupy Vancouver and the CUPE meeting in town. I wonder if Dewar will be around either of those events.
Even more interesting would be to see Nash attend Dewar’s event and vice-versa. The relative attendance at each event ought to be a good early indicator of their support levels.
I’ll definitely attend Nash’s event (since I heard of it first and her campaign interests me more), but if I can make it work, I may try to attend both events. You can look forward to some updates on Friday.
Peggy Nash in Vancouver this Thursday
Vancouver will get another NDP leadership candidate through town this Thursday when Toronto MP and (former) Finance Critic Peggy Nash comes to town. Brian Topp has already visited once, Nathan Cullen announced his race here, and Thomas Mulcair was here last week.
She’ll be meeting up with people at the Railway Club downtown (Seymour and Dunsmuir) and I’ll try to get a recording of any speech she might give.
Expected alliances
When I first heard that Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver (NSV) was running just four candidates for city council it was pretty apparent that today’s news was coming.
At the COPE nomination meeting last month, there was an almost obvious tension between the COPE executive and Tim Louis’ supporters. Louis ended up bumping off incumbent councillor David Cadman, and has long been critical of the electoral alliance with Vision Vancouver.
Now, with NSV endorsing the COPE slate, those who have been disappointed with Gregor Robertson over the past few years have alternates for council and mayor, without endangering any COPE candidates. This even helps Adrienne Carr and the Greens, who are also likely to get an endorsement.
What complicates this even further is that NPA isn’t even running a full slate for Park or School Board (6/7 and 5/10 respectively), and NSV is only running for Council and Mayor. The Greens are only running one candidate for each of those positions.
A poll released last week suggests that almost anything could happen. The poll doesn’t include NSV or their mayoral candidate Randy Helten, so mayoral support splits 66-32 for Vision. The results for council are less clear, especially since they found 19% support for the Greens, while only 11% for COPE. The poll doesn’t list its sample size or margin of error, so it’s worth questioning some of the numbers.
It should be an interesting election.
Alison Redford pulls a Christy Clark
In a huge upset win last night, Alison Redford pulled ahead of favourite Gary Mar to win the Progressive Conservative leadership and became the next premier of Alberta.
Mar was a powerful minister in Ralph Klein’s cabinet and had hoped to used that connection to his advantage. Nearly the entire PC caucus had endorsed Mar.
But similar to how Christy Clark won the leadership of the BC Liberals earlier this year, Redford became the anti-establishment candidate, rallying the votes needed to win.
Mar’s concession speech subtly highlights the issues Redford may now face as leader
"I know that I am leaving this province in very good hands. We have a very good team and a strong group of Progressive Conservative supporters," [Mar] said. "And I say 'progressive' conservative supporters, that's very important."
Redford was seen as the more moderate candidate, one who would keep hospitals and schools open, while Mar had openly mused about more health care privatization – a cause he championed for Klein as health minister. By electing Redford as leader, the PCs now risk losing a few more right-wing members to the extremist Wildrose – a party that had been stalled in the polls recently.
This move also threatens newly-minted Alberta Liberal leader Raj Sherman’s ability to offer a stark alternative to the PC dynasty that has ruled Alberta for more than four decades. Sherman had joined the Liberals after being kicked out of the PC caucus. It may also put the brakes on the Alberta Party, created as a grassroots centrist option.
Redford’s come-from-behind win is likely to make some PCs recall Ed Stelmach’s unlikely win in the last leadership convention. As the compromise candidate between the more right-wing Ted Morton and more progressive Jim Dinning, Stelmach offered little offensive to party members, and correspondingly offered little of substance as premier. Perhaps we’ll see a revolt against preferential ballots in the party.
In my personal opinion, Redford was the best choice for the PCs, her win symbolically ends the “old boys club” that has dominated Alberta’s political scene for decades and sets up for an election pitting her against the media darling Danielle Smith.
Did I mention I’m running for School Board?
If you’re not following me on Facebook or my personal blog, you may have missed my initial announcement that I’m running for one of the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) nominations for Vancouver School Board.
You can follow all my campaign updates at my other site: http://ian.bushfield.ca
The nomination meeting’s on September 18th, and until then I still need your help to raise my $500 nomination fee, so click the widget below and chip in a few bucks:
Democracy or policy?
With the HST referendum underway and ballots supposedly in the mail (I should have mine in the next couple days...) I've had a thought that there may be a bigger question than the subtleties of consumption taxation.
The question has to deal with two issues near and dear to my heart: Democracy and evidenced-based policy.
Disregarding whether or not the HST is smart, rational policy, it must be evidently clear that its implementation was anything but democratic. Harmonization was announced within weeks of an election which gave not a peep to the issue, and the paperwork was signed in such haste that it seemed negotiations had been going on for months (which they may or may not have been). With no opportunity to fairly weigh the pros and cons of this policy, the public was left scathing at every extra dime spent on every cup of coffee and haircut.
So my question is about priorities. While we should want a government that only brings forward rational, evidenced-based policy, can we let that come at the expense of democratic participation?
In other words, is being right or being heard more important?
My first inclination, and I won't claim to have a final answer on this issue that has only arisen in me this evening, is that we should prioritize democracy and accountability even at the expense of rational policy. History has given us countless examples of dictators and tyrants who grow increasingly corrupt when unchecked. The benevolent dictatorship is a fiction, and while far from perfect, democracy is still the least bad system of government to date.
And so it is partially to re-affirm that requirement of accountability that I feel compelled to vote Yes to scrap the HST. There are only so many chances to chastise one's government, and while the policy may or may not be good for the province, the lies around its implementation require reprimanding.
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