Okay, blogsters, here’s the kind of story that’s made for a niche audience — the kind that most of the voting public isn’t paying attention to right now, but which you, dear political junkies, are intensely interested in.
So, to recap the story I wrote today
– COPE is undergoing major transformations as many long-time supporters leave the executive, some saying they can’t work with the new leadership, many elected last April.(Apparently one other executive member quit today, on top of previous resignations, and another is expected to quit shortly.)
– A whole group of those leaving, including people like David Chudnovsky, are trying to decide what to do in advance of the next election, including possibly starting a new party.
– The NPA’s Peter Armstrong (about whom I wrote a fair bit in my recent Vancouver magazine story) is determinedly financing a very energetic effort to get the party on a solid footing.
– A bunch of smaller parties are sprouting up all over the map, some of them disaffected NPAers, others who have had nothing to do with politics.
The story is here and pasted below as usual, but I couldn’t stuff in everything that I accumulated in my notebook while reporting the story. So here are some additional details on what the unions, which have been trying to back both Vision and COPE, are thinking about all this, the new resignations, and other bits and pieces.
1. Where labour is at. Joey Hartman, president of the Vancouver and District Labour Council, says the VDLC, in a break from the past in Vancouver, will no longer endorse parties, but individual candidates. That’s how they handle it in every other municipality and that’s the plan from here on in Vancouver. “Previously, we’ve seen agreements between COPE and Vision and we’ve endorsed that. This time, we don’t anticipate that sort of agreement.”
The VCLC, however, doesn’t give money. Individual unions do. In the past, the biggest funders have been the CUPE unions (inside workers, outside workers, library, general B.C. union). So ….
2. CUPE B.C. secretary-treasurer Paul Faoro says CUPE endorsed and gave money to the joint Vision/COPE slate last time. He said each local will decide what to do, but “I can’t believe they would fund parties running against each other. If COPE follows through and runs a mayoralty candidate, it would be foolish for COPE to do that and you’d have to thin about the motive behind that. I suspect that supporting incumbents would be an automatic.”
3. David Chudnovsky, besides outlining the problems he sees with the current COPE leadership, also spelled out why he and the many COPE refugees won’t be switching to Vision (even though the Vision school board has done a very impressive job, he says).
a) “Vision’s affordable housing strategy hasn’t worked, isn’t working. It’s based on the assumption that the market can solve the problem when the market created the problem.
b) “It’s been very disrespectful and cavalier in their attitude to public engagement and democracy.”
4. Stuart Parker, the former B.C. Green Party leader, has also left the executive because, as the Georgia Straight reported, he didn’t agree with Tim Louis’ move to discuss a coalition with the Neighbours for a Sustainable Vancouver. But he is staying in the party and still dedicating time and energy to organizing, hoping that he can help the party transcend its current preoccupation with fighting with itself.
He describes COPE as having a bad culture, where it fights with itself out of habit. “No matter which of the two sides is in charge, it’s going to look for enemies and dissent within the party and make that the problem to solve.”
Parker says he hopes the party will take advantage of the energy and enthusiasm of new members coming in, but added “I think what the party is evolving into is totally up for grabs.”
5. Tim Louis had many more pithy comments to make than I was able to include. Among them
“Our membership has spoken very clearly, in April this year, when it elected an executive by a 10-to-1 ratio that was committed to bring the failed experiment to an end of COPE as a prop to Vision.”
“Vision is just a gluten-free version of the NPA; the NPA with bicycle lanes. The new executive has set COPE on a new course. It will be a party that will offer the electorate a clear alternative to Vision.”
“I have a lot of respect for Allan [Wong, who left COPE for Vision on Sunday], but his decision to cross the floor is nothing more than a reflection that his values more closely align with Vision. Allan is now free to be who he always was.”
Louis says COPE now has almost 1,000 members and it is drawing more people to its quarterly general meetings than other parties can get to the annual general meetings. Those new people are signing up in greater numbers every day and volunteering at outdoor tables all the time.
6. The official line from Vision ED Stepan Vdovine: “We’ve had agreements with COPE in the last two elections. We’re going to be positive about things and we’re open to working with anyone. We’re going to be aggressively reaching out to progressive voices. We will have some new, strong candidates.”
7. Donalda Greenwell-Baker quit the COPE executive today. I’m told Kim Hearty may be next.
Okay, that’s all folks. (Again, for more on the NPA, I posted my Vancouver magazine article, largely focused on them, last month.)
And … the Globe story
FRANCES BULA
VANCOUVER — Special to The Globe and Mail
Published Tuesday, Dec. 10 2013, 10:00 AM EST
Last updated Tuesday, Dec. 10 2013, 10:57 AM EST
