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Vision – COPE “negotiations” continue

With nominations just over a month away, the ongoing saga between Vision Vancouver and COPE continues. Apparently, talks are taking place.

So far, Vision has said that it will leave spots open for COPE incumbents. On council, that means Coun. David Cadman.

But that won’t satisfy COPE, Ellen Woodsworth, a former city councillor again seeking a COPE nomination for council, said Friday.

“At this point, the decision is to not run a COPE mayoral candidate if we can reach an agreement with Vision,” Woodsworth said.

“But if we can’t reach an agreement, we would run a COPE mayoral candidate.”

In other words, the status quo for the past year and a half at least: COPE is trying to negotiate unity with Vision, Vision is ignoring COPE or offering them table scraps, and COPE is making half-hearted threats to run a mayor if Vision continues to bully them.

The hawks at Vision, and the pundits who love to demonize Tim Louis, would be wise to remember what happened as a result of the Treaty of Versailles after WWI. In case this analogy is unclear: If you can’t stand Tim Louis, then resist the primordial urge to destroy the left and make a respectable peace offer to COPE, otherwise you will find yourselves running against a COPE mayor supported by former councillor Louis.

Gregson shooting for re-election

Sharon Gregson, who made headlines in 2006 for her advocacy of concealed weapons and the elimination of gun control in Canada, is running to get a nomination for re-election to the Vancouver Board of Education.

The school trustee left COPE to join Vision Vancouver earlier this year. Vision Vancouver supporter and pundit Bill Tieleman endorses Gregson, but COPE may well consider this addition by subtraction; the NPA, for their part, must be hoping she gets the nomination so that the general electorate can decide whether having a gun nut in charge of our school children is a good plan for Vancouver.

Liberals blurring NDP Vision for Vancouver

Politics makes for strange bedfellows, but one wonders if the NDP members who make up a good chunk of the base of Vision Vancouver are uncomfortable shacking up with so many federal Liberals.

A number of Vision candidates will be voting for this guy in the upcoming federal election.

A number of Vision executive members and prospective candidates are leading organizers with Stephane Dion’s party, even with Peter Ladner offering a much more Liberal-friendly face on the NPA than the dethroned Harper Yes Man Sam Sullivan.

First up is veteran Liberal operative Greg Wilson, a supporter of Gregor Robertson and executive member of Vision. Wilson, before being dumped during the campaign, was in fact the 2005 campaign manager… for the NPA! He is better known as a long-time backroom Liberal.

Vision executive member Greg Wilson managed the 2005 NPA campaign.

And then there are the council candidates stepping forward to compete for a nomination with Vision Vancouver. Among them are a number of long-time NDPers, but also some staunch Liberals.

There’s Catherine Evans, who lost out to MP Joyce Murray for the Liberal nomination to replace Stephen Owen in the recent by-election. And there’s Demetri Douzenis, who at age 30 with little to no municipal issues experience is trying to jump straight into the big leagues, a long-time Canadian Forces reservist who has also served on the Liberals Quadra executive.

I guess this shouldn’t be too surprising, since Vision Vancouver did start out as the Friends of (Liberal Senator) Larry Campbell.

It will, however, be interesting to see how the internal dynamics play out within Vision, especially if there’s a federal election this fall. Meanwhile, no word on whether Vision will be offering any kind of unity deal to COPE, whose executive continues to leave the door open to such an arrangement (while some disgruntled COPE members lose patience with their years-long ordeal). Could it be that the Liberals within Vision are blocking any kind of unity with COPE?

NPA Homecoming Queen: Melissa De Genova

Charlie Smith of the Georgia Straight reports that after a brief “fling” with Vision Vancouver, Melissa De Genova has gone home to the NPA to seek a Park Board nomination. Could Al De Genova be far behind?

It’s true that De Genova’s family defected to Vision Vancouver in 2006 after Mayor Sullivan suspended the five-term park commissioner from the NPA caucus.

But De Genova is a real-estate agent, and Vision Vancouver is really the NDP farm team in Vancouver. There aren’t many real-estate agents who support the NDP.

Meanwhile, one of the city’s newest real estate agents, long-time COPE (and NDP) member Aaron Jasper, has made the leap to Vision Vancouver to pursue a nomination for Park Board. Many COPE members will likely be shocked at this “defection,” as Jasper was until very recently a most vociferous critic of Vision Vancouver. His campaign launch event was held at the recently re-opened Nelson Park in the West End.

It’s not easy pretending to be Green in city politics

With Alan Garr on vacation, Vancouver writer-activist-gadfly Tom Sanborn is contributing a few op-eds in the Vancouver Courier. This week, Sanborn casts doubt on the much heralded “green” credentials of NPA mayoral hopeful Peter Ladner:

NPA mayoral candidate Peter Ladner has created the impression he is a new kind of business friendly and environmentally correct politician, likely to arrive at city meetings on his famous bike and to lard his speeches with enviro pieties. His web page even has a green colour scheme. But…

During the last city election, current mayor Sam Sullivan campaigned on a promise to reduce TransLink fares. Ladner joined Sullivan and his NPA colleague Suzanne Anton on the TransLink board in failing, over the three years that followed, to act on that promise–one that would have promoted more environmentally friendly use of our transit system.

Ladner’s support for the traffic-snarl-engendering big box Canadian Tire store in November 2007 has to be considered, too. The store, it has been estimated, will be responsible for adding up to 7,000 tons of greenhouse gases to our city’s air each year, so the colour to invoke here is an unpleasant car exhaust brown, not environmental green.

To be fair, Vision Vancouver also has a dubious record on some of these fronts. COPE also promised to reduce transit fees when they came in in 2002, but that was a promise that the likes of Larry Campbell and Raymond Louie quickly reversed. At the time, now Park Board commissioner Spencer Herbert was steaming mad at the sell-outs:

As we have seen with the recent fare increase, Campbell and Raymond Louie do not support bus riders and have no problem breaking election promises. Voters and party members were lied to. In the last election, Campbell said that he wanted a city where there would be no throwaway people, where no one would be left behind. These statements are pretty ironic now that starting January 1 even more low-income bus riders will not have the option of using public transit, being thrown away and left behind for a public-private-partnership RAV line.

Anyway, back to 2008: All parties are tailoring their campaign message to the green vote. This will come as no solace to former Green councillor Dr. Fred Bass (the greenest elected official Vancouver has ever had, arguably), who basically was unelected in 2005 because of his support for the Burrard Street Bridge trial bike lanes. In Vancouver, some people’s environmentalism is a mile wide and an inch deep. Let’s see what genuine green policies will turn up in the campaign promises of the NPA, Cope and Vision Vancouver. The municipal Green Party, for its part, seems to have essentially folded itself into Vision Vancouver following the council ambitions of former school trustee Andrea Reimer.