Vancouver City Politics: Good for COPE, Good for Vancouver

I’ve recovered sufficiently from the marathon nomination conference for the COPE slate for Vancouver city council, school board and parks board. It was a grueling three and a half hours of voting, party business and chit chat.

It took 3 ballots to get to the two COPE candidates for city council out of these candidates:

Nominations started with 322 registered voters and by resolution, the winning candidate had to have 161 + 1 (50% of r. voters + 1).

David Cadman 1st Ballot(161) 2nd Ballot (211)-Wins 1st spot
Tim Louis (157) (141) (131)
Ellen Woodsworth (126) (136) (137)– Wins 2nd spot
Meena Wong (118) 2nd Ballot - Meena steps down.
Terry Martin (82) 2nd Ballot - Terry dropped off.

This was a nerve wracking and surprising contest. Talking to different people many were surprised and dismayed with Tim Louis coming out ahead on the first vote. He had a good team campaigning for him and got a lot of support. Inevitably the talk turns to “strategic voting” with people trying to figure out how best to cast a vote depending on how things could split.

The Grace under Pressure Award goes to Meena Wong, hands down. When she stepped down and took herself out of the race it had to be a tough decision and an interesting thing to analyze. With Terry Martin dropping off and Meena stepping out, Ellen Woodsworth only picked up another 10 votes, from the 200 cast for the former two candidates.

And as a shout out to Meena, everyone in that room knows you have only just begun to rock and roll and you will have the support of many as you head forward.

The essential ingredient of politics is timing.
~ Pierre Trudeau

In the 3rd ballot, 271 voted, 3 ballots were spoiled and so out of 268, the race was very close, with Ellen only winning by 6 votes (needing 135 to win). Someone called for a re-count, but that was vetoed.

There were many who were happy that the 2 COPE city council candidates will be David Cadman and Ellen Woodsworth. They both have a lot of experience at city council and I think they will be excellent people to represent Vancouver. They are both people who are consensus builders and will be able to work constructively with the candidates who are elected from the other parties. With Vision Vancouver, COPE and the Greens united the NPA stands very little chance and I think they know that.

I know there were some very heavy hearts from the Tim Louis camp, who fought strong and well. There may be some disillusionment and anger, but I hope those will fade and all of the left can continue to talk and work together, like we always have.

Vancouver and its’ citizens and our visitors need all of our energy, knowledge, expertise and commitment in the days to come. This is the time to come together and not let political spats in the family get in the way of the politics we need to play outside of the house. We all have an election to win on November 15th 2008.

Politics is about winning. If you don't win, you don't get to put your principles into practice. Therefore, find a way to win, or sit the battle out.
David Horowitz
**

Parks Board nominees:
(2 COPE spots)
John Irwin, who withdrew his name because he and his partner are expecting twins, congrats to them.

Anita Romaniuk & Loretta Woodcock won by acclamation, which is great since both have lots of experience on Parks Board and are really good representatives for various stakeholders.

School Board nominees:
(5 COPE spots)
1st Ballot
Alvin Singh (242)
Bill Bargeman (246)
Jane Bouey (263)
Alan Wong (265)
Al Blakey (268)
Imitaz Popat (142)