Please Advise! Is the Green Vancouver Win an Omen for BC?

[Editor’s note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a PhD in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]

Dear Dr. Steve,

That’s one election down, one to go.

Do the municipal results contain portents for the provincial vote, Dr. Steve?

Signed

C. Ball

Dear CB,

Two elections, one week apart. It may seem brief, but it’s enough time to cycle through a couple of White House press secretaries.

There’s a lot to process from the municipal votes. First of all, Green Pete Fry defeated incumbent ABC candidate Ken Sim for Vancouver mayor. Vancouver baseball fans: There will be no major-league team. Return your season tickets for a partial refund. Also, the plan to heat Kits Pool with bitcoin mining is probably dead in the water.

Worse for Sim, his nemesis, COPE Coun. Sean Orr, got the most votes for city council. It seems Vancouver voters decided the enemy of Ken Sim is my friend.

So Vancouver has a Green mayor. With Ontario Premier Doug Ford busy dynamiting bike lanes, it is reassuring to see Vancouver voters rejecting ’50s nostalgia. Ford’s next move will likely be getting rid of seat belts and breathalyzers.

Former B.C. premier Mike Harcourt and ex-John Horgan chief of staff Geoff Meggs broke with the progressive field to reject Pete Fry and endorse Vote Vancouver’s Rebecca Bligh. Bligh got just shy of 8,000 votes. Pete Fry got about 87,700. As Maxwell Smart used to say: “Missed it by THAT much.”

A tip for Mike and Geoff: Avoid sports betting sites. You’d probably pick the Canucks to win it all. On another note, we may have to hold a bake sale for all those unfortunate people who donated so much to Sim. We can only hope they held back enough to buy themselves some soup.

In a shocking development, ABC, the party that wanted to abolish the park board, elected no one to the park board. ABC was almost wiped out of council too, retaining only one seat.

And failed mayoral candidate Colleen Hardwick, who ran with TEAM for a Livable Vancouver, was featured in a video complaining that voters keep selecting inexperienced mayors, concluding with “Vancouver, grow up.”

Or to paraphrase another political veteran: You won’t have Colleen Hardwick to kick around anymore.

Meanwhile in Surrey, Doug McCallum is back. Hardwick certainly couldn't complain that the 82-year-old once-and-future mayor lacks experience. Of course there’s a difference between a resumé and a rap sheet, and to be fair McCallum was found not guilty of public mischief in 2022. And, really, it’s inspiring that McCallum could rebound from that serious foot injury.

But now-ex-mayor Brenda Locke seemed to waste a lot of time battling a fait accompli with the new Surrey Police Service. Ultimately, the Surrey mayoral race seemed to come down to choosing your brand of ridiculous.

A big loser in Surrey: polls. A Canada Pulse Insights poll showed Locke with a comfortable lead and Surrey voters claiming the city was “headed in the right direction.” You might say they turned left instead, but it’s hard to say which direction McCallum represents. Which way to the Twilight Zone?

Which directions were the political arrows pointing last weekend? Pick a point on the compass. It swung left in Vancouver with Fry, the Greens and COPE, and right in New Westminster, thanks to the “You Can Call a Party Whatever You Like” Progressive Party. Incumbents were thrown out, incumbents were re-elected. You might as well seek a unifying theme in goose poop.

The BC Greens tried, though. They issued a triumphant press release on Monday headlined: “Pete Fry becomes first Green mayor of a major city in Canada, signals surge towards Greens in lead up to provincial elections.”

Umm... maybe. To make the Vancouver civic comparison work, the provincial Greens would have to convince Premier David Eby to step aside and unify the left. Didn’t happen. There may or may not be a Green wave on Saturday, but the election of Fry does not signal it.

One down, one to go. Stay limber, folks. Avoid getting “voter’s elbow.”