Vision Vancouver councillor Andrea Reimer favours alliance with COPE, Greens in 2011 election
Andrea Reimer says she thinks her party should form an alliance with the Coalition of Progressive Electors and the Greens for the 2011 civic election.
"Personally, I was very supportive of it last time," the Vision Vancouver councillor told the Straight, standing at the entrance to her backyard in East Vancouver. "Fourteen months out from the election right now and having gone through the experience of working with COPE on council, I can't see why we wouldn't do it. But we haven't discussed it since the last election."
The three municipal parties made an agreement for the 2008 election that saw them each run less-than-complete slates in order to avoid vote-splitting on the left.
Under that deal, Vision nominated eight candidates for city council, and COPE put forward two names. In terms of park-board candidates, Vision, COPE, and the Green Party of Vancouver ran four, two, and one, respectively. COPE fielded five candidates for school board, and Vision four. Neither COPE nor the Greens nominated a mayoral candidate to challenge Vision's Gregor Robertson.
Reimer, who's a former Green school trustee, mentioned that cooperation this time around could take the form of electoral accommodation again or a coalition. She stressed that she was only speaking for herself.
"I think it would be foolish of us to run against each other," Reimer said. "I don't think our disagreements are so strong that it makes sense for us to try and run against each other—to say we're better than this party or they're better than us."
Green park board commissioner Stuart Mackinnon told the Straight earlier this month, however, that he would like his party to field more candidates in the next election.
As far as her own political future, Reimer said she hasn't decided whether she will seek a second term on council. She noted that she originally planned to serve a single term and that it's "hard to imagine" missing out on three more years of her teenage daughter's life.
But she added, "If women don't run, we don't have women in politics. And if you want good family policy, you need people not just who have children but who actually are in the experience with children."
Former COPE councillor Tim Louis has suggested that Vision and COPE members come together for a meeting to jointly nominate a 2011 mayoral candidate.
Asked for her thoughts on this proposal, Reimer commented that she has difficulty seeing how it would happen but is open to discussing the idea.
"Vision has many, many more members than COPE," she said. "It doesn't seem like a very appropriate way to have a nomination race. It would kind of be like Canada and the U.S. holding their elections together. You know what I mean? It doesn't make a ton of sense to me."
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Comments
3 Comments
Max
Sep 12, 2010 at 7:46am
I can see why a Vision councillor would support such a coalition, after all it assures that Vision will receive no criticism from the left side of the political spectrum. It is not in the best interests of the Greens or COPE. Witness the last couple of years where COPE and the Greens have stifled criticisms of Vision apparently in keeping with their popular front type of coalition. Left ideas are usually squelched in these types of broad coalition, things get dumbed down in the move to the dead centre. The best example of this is down south where the left has largely been holding off criticizing Obama to the detriment of the anti-war and the anti-Wall Street movements and the workers generally (unemployment and underemployment now it the high teens).
But of course, my assumption above is that COPE and the Greens have something more to offer than Vision alone, and I admit that is a big assumption. In fact, COPE and Vision share many of the same members and the same limited (dead) centrist NDP outlook. Their cozy overlap of memberships and political ideology suggests my assumption is false, and probably COPE should just join Vision.
Other than their significant investments in making improvements for cyclists in the city, I don't see much difference between Vision, Larry Campbell's group or Sam Sullivan's. It's business as usual in Vancouver.
Ziggles
Sep 12, 2010 at 12:34pm
I like Andrea as a person, but, I think this alliance or coalition, whatever you want to call it, isn't going to hold up after the way Vision has run City Hall for the past 2 years and the arrogant way they've treated COPE and Green Councillors, not to mention how incredibly disrespectful they've been to lone NPA Councillor Suzanne Anton. People are already rejecting the divisive "us vs. them" politics this Council has wholly embraced after railing against it during the last election. Everyone I've talked to wants to see more diversity in opinions on Council instead of this single-sided mindset that appears to have taken hold not only of Council, but also of the professional staff which has become so politicized under Vision.
Unfortunately, when Vision had a real chance to lead and bring the whole city together, they instead chose to continue campaigning, landing on those who didn't always agree with them in the same vicious, personal way they piled on NPA candidates during the last election. The "NPA hacks" remarks caught on tape is a prime example of this toxic, overly-political mindset that has taken hold of Vision and City Hall.
As a result, there's a growing chorus of those who voted for Vision that are now having second thoughts about giving Vision so much absolute power at City Hall. The discontent with Vision is growing. People will be looking for alternatives in the next election, and that's why COPE and the Greens will be throwing away a great opportunity to put more diverse voices and opinions on the Council if they allow Vision to dictate the terms of their participation in our municipal election.
Lee L
Jun 3, 2011 at 8:52am
Qutoing Vancouver Observer quoting Andrea Reimer:
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I asked Reimer how will her government’s Greenest City by 2020 promise be realized if Vision Vancouver were to be swept out of office
Greenest City is a like a tree with good, deep roots ”¦ at a political level, we’ve made sure it would be painful and hard to rip out.
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And this is why I would NEVER again vote for Vision or Andrea Reimer. The attitude that even if the people of the city, who pay for these councillors and their projects, they will have no choice because of the way we secretly cobbled things. It is almost as if she said they had set booby traps for the hacks that follow them. Disgusting. Democracy has value Andrea despite what you practice.