I’m proud of the fact that COPE has chosen its most diverse municipal election slate ever. We can truly say that we are much more representative of the makeup of Vancouver’s population as a whole—with broad representation from the aboriginal, African Canadian, Indo-Canadian, Latin, Chinese Canadian, disability, LGBTQ, and other communities.

COPE members also opted at their nomination meeting on Sunday (September 7) to run a mayoralty candidate and eight candidates for the 10 seats on Vancouver city council. The break from the formerly subservient position to Vision Vancouver is clear and extremely refreshing (formerly Vision would run a mayoralty candidate and seven for city council, COPE only a measly three for council and no one for mayor).

Heading up COPE’s team for the November 15 municipal election is mayoralty candidate Meena Wong. In a fit of “Meena-mania”, Wong was elected by 193 votes over her one competitor, Anthony Guitar, who garnered 18 votes. But, there was also a show of “Tim-mania” and “Sid-mania” in the nominations for city council as COPE veteran Tim Louis chocked up 179 votes—followed by Sid Chow Tan with 178 votes. Others elected to run for city council were: Keith Higgins (124), Audrey Siegl (165), Gayle Gavin (142), Lisa Barrett (137), and Jennifer O’Keefe (104).

COPE members loved Wilson Munoz and John Yano equally and ended up giving them a tie vote of 116 each. The COPE executive will be looking at constitutional options to resolve this impasse quickly in the next few days as only one can be picked in order to stay within the membership-approved magic number eight.

Aside from the wide diversity among the COPE candidates, equally exciting are the different talents and skill sets that each candidate brings. I see Meena Wong, for instance, as a great complement to a Tim Louis. Louis is the pit bull that we need on city council to keep them honest—especially in the realm of financial accountability.

Wong is more the conciliator and the diplomat—talents well suited to the position of mayor. Wong’s political heros are Tommy Douglas, Jack Layton, and Olivia Chow—three leaders with a talent for mediating and reaching consensus.

One of the most important factors in this nomination meeting is the fact that COPE members presented themselves as an independent and autonomous political organization, not tied to Vision, and willing to name Vision for what it is: developer party “number one”—the NPA being developer party “number two”.

Members opted to compete for five of the nine seats on the Vancouver school board. Elected as COPE candidates for school board were: Diana Day (123), Ilana Shecter (102), Ralph Fraatz (93), Kombi Nanjalah (88), and Heidi Nagtegaal (87).

For park board, candidates selected were: Anita Romaniuk (102), Urooba Jamal (80), Imtiaz Popat (71), and Ezra Bloom (51). A fifth position is still to be filled (in a separate process) by an aboriginal female candidate—meaning that COPE will compete for a total of five out of seven park board seats.

Now that this nomination meeting is over, the really tough work for COPE begins. COPE does not accept donations from developers. You can bet that Vision and the NPA will be receiving enormous financial contributions from the development industry—probably ballooning their respective campaign budgets to $2 million or more each.

Our provincial Liberal government has flatly refused to make any meaningful financial reforms that would level the playing field in municipal elections. No limits on corporate, union, or individual donations. No campaign contribution rebate system like other provinces. No return to a ward system. Everything is stacked in favour of big money and against the “little guy”.

To top it all off, we now have four-year terms at the municipal level. The prospect of four years of a Vision majority on Vancouver city council is a nightmare vision of rampant development on every available square foot of the city with the accompanying destruction of heritage neighbourhoods and buildings.

Neighbourhoods like my own (Grandview-Woodlands) are starting to organize against the Vision development plans for our community. Some may be working for COPE in the approaching election campaign.

It will be a very tough fight. But, with Meena Wong as our mayoralty candidate and our other talented and diverse candidates, we must strive to deprive Vision of its majority on city council. The Vision development monster must be brought under control. For COPE, this election campaign will be about real measures to protect the environment, to eliminate homelessness, to make the city affordable for average citizens and to protect our neighbourhoods from wanton redevelopment. The campaign will also be about once again having the voices of neighbourhoods and average citizens heard at city hall, school board, and park board.