Notes on the Civic Elections

Vancouver
WHICH SAM SULLIVAN?
By David Beers

Vancouver now has a very interesting guy for a mayor. Whether Sam Sullivan proves to be as interesting a mayor is not very likely. Mayors in Vancouver, even the most free thinking, find their intellects restrained, even punished, by the grind of City Hall's daily calculations.

Consider Philip Owen. He was as boring as brown loafers until he caught the religion of European-style harm reduction. Suddenly, he was an international beacon for enlightened drug policy - but for his cutting edge crusading he was rewarded by a Non-Partisan putsch.

Or take Larry Campbell. The first time I met him was at a soiree hosted by a maverick NPA councilor named Sam Sullivan. Campbell, the former coroner, held everyone in the restaurant back room rapt (including a nodding Sullivan) by declaring that Vancouver could easily slash its fire department forces by half because built-in sprinkler systems so effectively douse the number of serious blazes in the city. Fast forward five years. Vision Vancouver, spawn of Campbell and led by mayoral candidate Jim Green, was so supportive of firefighters' ranks that it netted the union's endorsement.

So good luck to the Sam Sullivan who once told me philosophers change society, not politicians, and whose smarts have catalyzed the formations of several innovative non-profits for people with disabilities. I first got to know that Sam Sullivan well when I wrote for The Sun, five years ago, an article about his now so well known decision to buy several weeks' worth of heroin for a prostitute acquaintance. At the time Sullivan explained he was only treating his friend as a physically sick person rather than as a criminal. This, he said, is what government should do: prescribe drugs for free to the addict, so that the addict might be able to stop selling her body and hopefully find other work and treatment. Or better yet, Sullivan mused to me, why not just legalize drugs and regulate them?

This willingness to toy with radical ideas was right in character for Sullivan, who liked to talk about hanging out with Jerry Brown, perhaps the most free thinking politician ever to be voted the keys to the California governor's mansion. (Brown, by the way, eschewed that mansion while he was governor, living instead in a tiny rented apartment, even while dating rock singer Linda Ronstadt.) Sullivan was excited to tell me that while visiting Brown's Oakland, California house, he communed with another guest, Ivan Illich, the radical philosopher who considered public schools places that killed the soul.

So that's Sam the Seeker, Sam the very interesting guy. And yet, I've long been struck by how safely and boringly Sullivan the Councilor has played his cards. To judge by his time in opposition to COPE and during the campaign, you'd be forgiven for believing him to be a bean counter with no bold ideas of his own, just wan whimpers about whether Woodward's or Southeast False Creek might run some over budget, never mind that both projects if done right, have the potential to reinvent Vancouver in the imagination of Canada and maybe the world.

It would be great if Sam the Seeker would turn City Hall into an ongoing version of those soirees he throws, cranking up the ferment of ideas in a city that is well positioned to try out all sorts of new experiments. I'm not expecting that, based on the campaign and twelve years of Sullivan the Councilor, not to mention the safely conservative leanings of the backers and advisors that made him the city's top politician on Saturday.

David Beers is founding editor of The Tyee.

Vancouver
OBSTRUCTED VISION
By Mark Leiren-Young

The biggest problem Vision may have had was a lack of it. Did COPE really suffer from not running a candidate for Mayor? Or did Vision suffer from not running a full slate? The most fascinating question now is whether Vision is going to take it to the next level and kick COPE out of bed. Or was this really just The Green Party and a platform for Mayor Da Vinci and Not James Green to punish COPE classic for not playing well with others? Like I said on the blog, voters chose a no-name party over the brand name. I think that's a pretty good indication they've had it with the brand.

I suspect that all a COPE Mayoralty Candidate would have accomplished -- besides siphoning off enough votes that Jim Green wouldn't have had a hope of winning -- would have been to confirm just how badly voters wanted to trash COPE. Although if COPE hadn't hinted at running an unelectable candidate to challenge Green, I wonder if Sam and Christy would have been the only hats in the ring for the NPA's top spot.

Barely a week ago, Re/Max predicted that next year the average home price in Vancouver is likely to hit $462,000. Not an average west side home, or an average south side home, an average home. I'm not sure that bodes well for a party that makes its bones taking down developers. Don't think it bodes well for the city either, but that's another column...

As nasty as the campaign got -- and it wouldn't be BC politics if it wasn't nasty -- this council looks like it could be, um, kinda depressingly middle of the road.

Brilliant rope-a-dope campaign by Sam Sullivan (both for leader and for Mayor). I suspect James Green, Jimmy Green, Jim Grean and Nancy Greene could have all run for Mayor and Jim Green still would have demolished Christy Clark.

Tyee regular contributor Mark-Leiren Young writes the monthly Fast Rewind column.

Vancouver
TURNS OUT, IT WAS THE TURNOUT
By Tom Barrett

We can -- and probably will -- spend the next three years arguing whether James Green cost Jim Green the election. As Charles Campbell pointed out on The Tyee forum on election night, it comes down to how many of James Green's votes were anti-Jim Green protest votes and how many were mistakes. And there's no way of knowing that for sure.

It seems to me, though, that the big deciding factor was the turnout. As the pundits were saying before the vote, a low turnout equals trouble for Jim Green and the left, because the people who turn out regularly are your upper-income types who tend to vote NPA. In 2002, there were big issues like injection sites and a charismatic new mayoral candidate in Larry Campbell to drag marginal voters out to the polls.

Turnout in 2002 was 50 percent. Turnout Saturday was 32 percent. There were no hot issues this time -- unless you get all hot over the question of whether Sam Sullivan voted for or against the Woodward's project. It was a grumpy campaign that was unlikely to energize anybody. And the NPA had a smart strategy: they targeted their Chinese-Canadian supporters and didn't bother buying much other advertising. A big ad campaign in the mainstream media would have just reminded people there was an election going on. And heck, once you do that there's no telling what kind of people will show up at the polls.

Tom Barrett is a contributing editor to The Tyee.

Vancouver
OR MAYBE IT WASN'T THE TURNOUT
By Ian King

The conventional wisdom has it that low turnout in the Vancouver elections favours the NPA, who can count on better-off residents in the city's southwest corner to come out and back their slate.

Looking only at the percentage turnout figures for the last four elections would seem to confirm that adage.

The NPA sweep in 1996 was also marked by a 32.4% turnout. In 1999, turnout rose to 36.8%, with that year's COPE-Green alliance simultaneously gaining a toe-hold on all three elected bodies. The average COPE or Green council candidate's number of votes also increased, as did their share of the popular vote.

2002, the year of the COPE landslide, saw half of the 280,055 eligible voters cast a ballot. This year, only 7,689 fewer ballots were cast: 132,072 in 2005, down from 139.971 in 2002. The low percentage turnout comes from the fact that there were 407,040 eligible voters on the rolls in 2005, which made turnout seem much lower this year.

So what gives? 127,000 eligible voters didn't move to Vancouver in three years; that's an unlikely accomplishment in a city that grows by about 7,000 people annually.

Municipal voters' lists are derived from the provincial lists. The number of eligible municipal voters is higher in years when the local and provincial elections coincide, which makes percentage figures for voter turnout misleading.

In fact, the shift between 1996 and 1999 seems to be more likely a result of changing preferences, not changing turnout. The same can be said for 2005, where the winning NPA candidates got an average of 10,000 more votes than the side's two survivors three years earlier.

Sam Sullivan also picked up wins on the East Side in what has traditionally been COPE territory. Larry Campbell won every poll north of Kingsway in 2002 save one in Renfrew Heights; on the West Side, Campbell dominated north of 16th Avenue.

Sullivan won polls in the East Side, both in his old Collingwood Village neighbourhood and adjacent poll divisions extending north as far as Hastings. He also took a half-dozen polls in Downtown South and Coal Harbour, while West Point Grey returned to the NPA fold after the 2002 flirt with Larry Campbell.

The controversy surrounding slots at Hastings Park seems to have played a part in the polls around the park. While Green supported slots early on, Sullivan was initially opposed, changing his vote only after council voted to allow slots at the Plaza of Nations. In Poll Division 28, which surrounds Hastings Park, Jim Green won by just 19 votes. District 30, adjacent to the park, picked Sullivan by over 100 votes.

Vision now finds itself at a crossroads: even without winning the mayor's race, it's a force on council and is not about to go away. Yet it is not represented on the school or parks board, where there's only COPE. Unlike most parties, Vision is not a membership organization and its candidate selection process was a backroom affair resembling more the NPA of old than any of the extant civic parties. That may have been the best option in this elections, but will potential supporters tolerate it for the next three years?

Over on the COPE side, it was telling that David Cadman was the side's only survivor. Cadman's genial personality and propensity to try and work across dividing lines likely put him over the top, especially with ticket-splitters looking to round out their ballots. If Vision's Tim Stevenson was noted for not trying to antagonize the "COPE Classics," then Cadman played that role in dealing with the "COPE light" councillors who were to become the core of Vision Vancouver.

The gentlemanly Fred Bass was only 2,000 votes out of tenth place, while the remaining COPE classics were in a tight pack further back, suggesting that they had little appeal beyond their base.

Ian King was news editor of Terminal City.

Surrey
BOOK BANNERS WEREN'T EXPELLED
By Jared Ferrie

Surrey voters nudged their municipal government to the left on Saturday - but only slightly. The three-term incumbent, Doug McCallum, was trounced by independent Dianne Watts. But McCallum's right wing Surrey Electors Team (SET) remains solidly in control of both city council and the school board.

Watt's herself is a former SET councilor. After splitting from the party in 2003, she became increasingly critical of McCallum's leadership style as well as his approach to development. Voters seemed to share her concerns, and perhaps they were alarmed at the city's worsening urban sprawl and traffic problems when they handed her a 10,000-vote victory.

"I will make sure we have good development and protect the environment," she said in her victory speech.

That may be good news to many not only in Surrey, but throughout the Lower Mainland. McCallum has been accused of ignoring guidelines set out by the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD) in its Livable Region Strategy (LRS), which calls for growth balanced with environmental conservation. In addition to being on the GVRD board, McCallum chaired TransLink - an irony to critics who accused him of neglecting public transit. The door is now open to someone more supportive of the LRS to fill each of those positions.

But the big upset the left was hoping for didn't happen. The newly formed Surrey Civic Coalition (SCC) managed to elect only one councilor, former mayor Bob Bose, who has served on city council for the past term as an independent. Independent Judy Villeneuve was also reelected, leaving six of eight seats to SET members.

Voters also continued to support Surrey's right wing school board. The SET-dominated board sparked one of the country's most high profile education cases in 1998 when its ban children's books featuring same sex parents was challenged in B.C.'s Supreme Court. Only one SCC trustee, the reelected Terry Alan, will sit on the board.

Tri-Cities
SUBURBAN SLEEPER
By DJ Lam

Aside from an upset in the Coquitlam mayoral race, little else moved in the North East Sector on Saturday.

But what was surprising about the Tri-Cities campaigns was the ugly absence of regional issues dialogue. In an area where city boundaries blur, and Tri-Cities' interests meet at the level in the GVRD, few candidates -- even the "fringe" candidates -- preached progressive policy, rapid transit agreement, city integration or other extra-municipality ideas. Consider this in the context that the Tri-Cities are designated to grow significantly in the GVRD's Liveable Region Strategic Plan.

Port Coquitlam's reputation as a sleeper town didn't disappoint electors on Saturday; PoCo returned its mayor and council in full. Unfortunately, this means there remains only one female voice on city council. In a city known more for the Pickton case and its absenteeism during the murder of Breann Voth, social issues remained sidelined by the infrastructure issues (overpasses, taxation, city buildings, etc…) usually most popular with voters living in top-tier socio-economic standings. Social issues brought to candidates were usually deferred to the city's provincial master during the campaign. A dull election means a dull three years in the Tri-Cities' anchor.

But if Port Coquitlam was boring Port Moody residents proved that had better things to do on election Day - besides vote, that is. According to the city's website, voter turnout reached 17.54 percent. Given that its mayor (Joe Trasolini) and school trustees were elected by acclamation, it's clear that the race for the city's six councillor jobs wasn't worth an exercise in democracy.

Coquitlam plays an important part of the Tri-Cities, lying between Port Moody and Port Coquitlam. Whatever happens in Coquitlam unreservedly affects PoCo and Port Moody. This could be why the Coquitlam race was the only one worth watching. In the tight race for the mayor's chair, Maxine Wilson's positive message about sustainability beat out Jon Kingsbury and his Coquitlam First's law and order platform.

Victoria region
COLOUR IT GREEN
By Barbara McLintock

Those with the biggest reason to celebrate in the capital region are the Green Party and its supporters. Greens made two big breakthroughs in the area's municipal votes.

The party's Sonya Chandler came from nowhere to take one of the two vacant seats on Victoria city council. And Jane Sterk, a better-known Green name in the region, not only won election to council in the bordering municipality of Esquimalt, but topped the polls, coming in ahead of all the incumbents.

Chandler is a nurse who works for the Victoria Youth Clinic, a facility providing health services to high-risk and street-involved youth. Sterk, who ran for the Greens in the May provincial election, has training as a counseling psychologist. Perhaps as a result of these backgrounds, both stress social issues and harm reduction in their platform as well as the more traditionally "Green" environmental issues.

In Esquimalt, former mayor Chris Clement, who was endorsed by the NDP, won an easy victory over incumbent Darwin Robinson. Clement, who is also an ecologist, said he's looking forward to working with Sterk on Green issues like improving transit and "smart growth" for the municipality.

In Victoria, Alan Lowe won election for the third straight time, but only after surviving a bit of a scare from Ben Isitt, the challenger from the Victoria Civic Electors (VCE), the civic arm of the NDP. Lowe ended up with 52 percent of the popular vote, compared to 44 percent for Isitt. The figure is the more remarkable because Isitt, a self-proclaimed socialist, was actually deemed too radical to be endorsed by the VCE executive (although the executive was then overruled by the membership).

One other well-known name who won election in the Victoria area was former provincial Liberal cabinet minister Susan Brice, who topped the polls for councilor in Saanich, Victoria's largest bedroom community. Brice was endorsed by current mayor Frank Leonard (who was acclaimed this time around), even though the two had had a bitter dispute over Brice's decision to run provincially in Saanich South in the 2001 election - a riding that some Liberals thought should have been Leonard's for the asking.

Barbara McLintock is a Tyee contributing editor in Victoria.