That leaves Cadman

With Vision bringing in a right-wing candidate, and two right-wing candidates fighting it out within the NPA, doesn't this make David Cadman of COPE the no-brainer for the left, and even for some of the "centre."

Now we know why Vision Vancouver has been ignoring COPE's pleas for unity for the past year. They've been too busy having lunch with NPA councillors and trying to court a right-wing mayoral candidate (Jamie Graham, Carole Taylor, De Genova...and now Peter Ladner!)

Quote:With Vision bringing

No kidding. What is particularly bizarre is De Genova's reference to potential Vision candidate and rival Gregor Robertson.

http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/Columnists/KingsCorner/2008/02/08/4834190-sun.html

One would think that both would be somewhere in the centre of the political spectrum, which attracted them to Vision in the first place.

But I digress.

Actually, Kennedy Stewart

Actually, Kennedy Stewart has more ties to Vision than to COPE, but what he's saying is that if De Genova and the Liberals take over Vision then the left will have to unite behind COPE.

Imagine that all this could have been avoiding if people like Geoff Meggs and Jim Green has not brought in Larry Campbell to COPE in the first place. And COPE could have won anyway back in 2002, albeit with more media hostility and a slimmer margin, with Cadman.

Use more force Luke

Quote:

Gregor Robertson's leanings were "so left he falls over," and declaring that he couldn't serve on council with Robertson as mayor.

Dandy selective quoting there. Nice to skip the rest where De Genova admits his error and changes his position about Robertson. That a sign of integrity IMO.

Parties' financial backers

I would love to see pie charts showing breakdowns of all the political parties' donation sources.

McGee spin doesn't wash

So Mike Magee, the co-chair of Vision Vancouver, gets in an additional quote to say that nothing much should be read in to his having the occasional meal with NPA cllr Peter Ladner. But Mike, you asked Peter Ladner to run for mayor under the banner of Vision Vancouver! Are we allowed to read something into that?

How can Vision bash COPE for not capitulating sufficiently and not "uniting the left" when Magee and company are transparently trying to fill the centre-right of the political spectrum. The people who run Vision and the NPA really believe that political decisions are best made in backrooms, or over a nice lunch, rather than by a democratic grassroots process. It's enough to turn one off from the cynicism of electoral politics for good.

Naivete?

My instincts suggests a simple explanation:

Over the years the extreme right wing politicians have grown increasingly crass in their neo-liberal shananagins and it began to make their corporate masters squirm.

Then came the Tony Blair solution which proved that a supposedly working class political party like British Labour could deliver the goods to the corporate elite far more efficiently than the old style conservative business parties.

Bring in Larry Campbell to take over COPE and deliver on key issues for the neo-liberal agenda like the RAV-line. On discovering some left wing hardliners would not oblige, a split is created that leaves the left abandoned with responsibility for all the mutual election debts while the corporate toadies with their corporate funding set up a "visionary" party that is unencumbered by the "political lunacy" of the "extremists" who insisted on sticking to their election promises.

Next thing we know, the BCFED unions are having nothing to do with COPE until they do a deal with Vision--Vision being the new "voice of reason" on the left that union bosses find so accommodating to their particular interests.

The only problem with all this is that there is nothing leftish about Vision. I base this on the simple fact that the Vision representatives, when they were known as COPE Lite, obliged the neo-liberal provincial government with an opportunity to succeed with getting a major privatization scheme--a precedent setting 3P operation--in place in BC.

My prediction: The NPA will eventually fade away as Vision comes to represent the growing power of the Young Turks of big business (greening of business, anyone?) who are gradually shunting aside the Neanderthals of big business.

Perhaps the unions can then get back to helping with funding the left as some small way of offsetting the funding that the business parties get from business. The corporations fund parties to ensure that their agenda carries the day. Though miniscule by comparison, the funding that unions give to parties is intended to champion the interests of ordinary people.

Union funding is all that stands between us and the flood of corporate self-interest that seeks to mould our reality for their benefit. Denying that class interests are at work here is dishonest and I can't wait for the unions to come to their senses on this issue.

Excellent point Leaflet

And you know, after last summer and fall in Vancouver you'd think that union memebership might have gotten that message loud and clear...

Perhaps as the new municipal tax regime starts to cut....oh, cripes, no working people can afford to live here anymore anyway.

At least there is a place like Tyee where the subject can at least come up...

Nice post!

Conflicted?

Di Genova likes Vision's social policies but he's a fiscal conservative. Doesn't he grasp the contradiction? You can't pay for the social policies via fiscal conservatism and ever more tax cuts - that's why our streets are filled with the homeless, the mentally ill, high-school dropouts getting into drugs and running with gangs, etc.

Or maybe "Vision's social policies" aren't what I assumed they were all along. Who is Vision anyway and what is their Vision?

If they're courting Di Genova and Ladner, while Robertson (who thinks social programs for the needy means a bailout for Cambie merchants) is seen as a whacko ultra-leftist, this does not sound like COPE Lite any more - Magee and co have followed Senator Larry across the centre line to become NPA Lite.

That leaves a huge gap on the centre left that I don't see COPE filling unless they miraculously manage to reinvent themselves overnight.

Visions Of Sugarplums

The financial disclosure document for 2005 filed by Vision Vancouver provides an interesting insight into where Vision Vancouver -- a split from COPE led initially by ex-mayor Larry Campbell and then by ex-councillor Jim Green -- gets its money (and where it draws its support from).

The document is available online at http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/election2005/candidates_all.htm#elector_org (Click on the Vision Vancouver election financial disclosure statement PDF file.)

Vision received a total of $1,357,307.26 in contributions.

$991,296.47 was from corporations (73.0% of the total)

$201,316.93 was from individuals (14.8%)

$158,318.86 was from unions (11.7%)

Developers contributed a minimum of $396,087 (29.2% of total contributions).

The liquor and bar industry kicked in $30,750 (2.3% of total contributions).

Casino and gambling interests donated $205,785 (15.2% of total contributions).

In short, developers, gambling and liquor interests accounted for almost half of Vision Vancouver's total election contributions ($632,622, or 46.7% of all donations).

Nine corporations contributed $20,000 or more and accounted for 33.5% of total donations (these were Eagle Medallion Fortress International Corp. (internet gambling) - $169,995; Rennie Marketing Systems (developer) - $75,639; Concord Pacific (developer) - $48,250; Ashford Management (Coast Whistler Hotel) - $35,000; Great Canadian Casino (gambling) - $30,750; Xiang Enterprises (unknown) - $30,680; Pequod Sailing Corp. (John McCaw (part-owner of Vancouver Canucks) - $28,963; Warrington PCI Management (property managers) - $21,500; The Keg Restaurant (food services) - $20,000.

Not to mention the $9,100 donated to Vision Vancouver by the viciously anti-union Telus Communications ($7,600 of it during the TWU lockout in 2005).

Larry Campbell is now a Liberal senator. Jim Green is now a consultant employed by Bastion Development Corporation Ltd. (which donated $13,750 to Vision).

Any questions?