COPE councillor David Cadman told the Straight it could take “a little longer” than a week to decide whether he will run for mayor in the November civic election.

By Sunday evening (June 15), the two-term councillor, along with everyone else, should know which Vision Vancouver mayoral candidate—
NDP MLA Gregor Robertson, Coun. Raymond Louie, or park-board commissioner Allan De Genova—will face off against NPA councillor and mayoral candidate Peter Ladner.

“Well, I am going to talk to that [Vision] mayoralty candidate, and I think I am going to see (a) who it is, and (b) what their interest is in being a common mayoralty candidate and pulling together a common slate and a common campaign,” Cadman said by phone on June 11. “That will determine what I do.”

Cadman said his priority has “always been unity” between the Coalition of Progressive Electors and Vision—the latter having formed out of divisions within COPE during the previous council term. At Vision’s inaugural annual general meeting in 2006, Cadman, as the opening speaker, advocated for a united slate of the two parties.

“I have been told not to comment on the Vision race, but I think it is pretty clear from the numbers that Al is not going to be there,” Cadman said. “I am also hearing that a lot of people who Al signed up are now going, ‘Oh, Peter Ladner, that is more likable to us,’ and some of them may not even turn out. Everyone assumed it was going to be Sam [Sullivan]. Now that it is not Sam, what happened to some of the people who Al attracted? Will they come out to support him? My sense is they will. But, when all is said and done, will they stick with Vision? I don’t know.”