04) COPE MEETS JUNE 26 TO LAUNCH CIVIC CAMPAIGN
PV Vancouver Bureau
Vancouver's civic election is already underway, five months before voters head to the polls on Nov. 19. Two of the city's three major parties have nominated candidates, and the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) will meet this month to start up its preparations. (That meeting begins at 2 pm, Sunday, June 26, at the Japanese Hall, 487 Alexander Street.)
Hoping to make a comeback, the right-wing Non-Partisan Alliance has nominated its sole city councillor, Suzanne Anton, for mayor. Several NPA council candidates are getting regular corporate media coverage for their attacks against the Vision majority on city council, and Anton herself is a popular figure, especially among upper-income voters. The NPA has hired a big-time corporate fundraiser to help pull together a multi-million dollar campaign.
So the NPA, which crashed and burned twice in the past decade (the 2002 and 2008 elections) is back in the race. Formed as a big business coalition to keep the left out of City Hall, the NPA has dominated Vancouver politics for most of the past 70 years. On several occasions, most recently in 2005, the NPA has taken advantage of divisions among centre and left forces to regain office. Suzanne Anton is no Rob Ford, and Vision mayor Gregor Robertson has gone out of his way to keep friendly relations with Victoria, but the provincial Liberal government would certainly prefer a friendly NPA administration in Vancouver.
The cooperation agreement signed in May between the centrist Vision party and COPE is designed to block that possibility. Despite some sharp differences between the two parties, both are well aware that an electoral alliance is necessary to defeat the NPA.
The 50,000-member Vancouver and District Labour Council and key unions in the civic field are focused on stopping the NPA, which locked out CUPE municipal employees for months in a bitter 2007 labour dispute. Without Vision/COPE cooperation, the labour movement would have little reason to put valuable funds and campaign workers into the civic campaign - especially if a provincial election takes place earlier in the fall as expected.
A loss of labour support would be particularly difficult for COPE, which was formed in 1968 by the Labour Council and a wide range of social justice allies. After tilting towards Vision in 2005 and 2008, the labour movement has slowly been moving back in COPE's direction.
For all these reasons, it appears likely that COPE members will ratify the agreement at their June 26 AGM, just as they gave 90% backing to a ballot alliance with Vision during the 2008 campaign. The agreement sets out candidate numbers for each party on a common slate (7 Vision and 3 COPE for city council, 5 Vision and 4 COPE for school board, 4 Vision and 2 COPE for park board).
The agreement also commits the parties to develop joint positions on a few key issues, such as housing and homelessness at the city council level.
On other issues, the parties are free to stake out their own positions, which will overlap in many areas and diverge in others. COPE, for example, will continue to argue against the ongoing shift of the local taxation burden, which has increasingly been placed on homeowners to give the business sector a break.
Matters are simpler at the School Board level, where the four Vision and three COPE trustees have worked closely for the past three years. Led by VSB chair Patti Bacchus (Vision) and vice-chair Jane Bouey (COPE), the progressive majority on the Board has been a powerful voice against Liberal underfunding of public schools across British Columbia.
If the agreement is adopted by COPE members, the stage will be set for COPE's own nomination meeting in September. Assuming that COPE council incumbents David Cadman and Ellen Woodsworth receive the support of most members, that meeting may see a sharp struggle for the third COPE council spot.
One candidate seeking a COPE nomination is R.J. Aquino, a popular figure in the progressive Filipino community. Another is former councillor Tim Louis, who is widely seen as a more aggressive critic of Vision than of the NPA. Union activists speaking to People's Voice have stated that if Louis is nominated, it will be nearly impossible for COPE to win serious labour support for its campaign.
(The August issue of PV will report on the COPE AGM and other civic election developments.)
(The above article is from the June 16-30, 2011, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)