COPE candidates’ diversity fails to translate into multicultural voter base

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      In 2014, COPE ran a candidate of Chinese descent for mayor and backed her with ethnically diverse slates for council, park board, and the board of education. But there is little evidence that this helped the municipal party in the November 15 election.

      Despite its fielding Meena Wong in the mayoral contest, there are less than a handful of Chinese names on COPE’s donors list for the recent election. A map of COPE voter support shows the party in the basement in Vancouver neighbourhoods, from Shaughnessy to Kerrisdale, and throughout South Vancouver. (An exception is Marpole, where COPE performed marginally better.)

      Richard Marquez, a former COPE board member who has also worked on municipal campaigns in San Francisco, described the party’s strategy for 2014 as “a form of postmodern tokenization”.

      “There is a fine line between ethnic tokenization in terms of electoral representation and actual, significant grassroots leaders that have built multiracial coalitions on a vast array of social-justice issues,” he explained in a telephone interview. “I’m not sure that COPE struck that balance in a way that is actually inspiring and mobilizing large numbers of communities of colour, immigrant networks, and working-class people.”

      Marquez applauded COPE for building a diverse slate. He drew attention to Sid Chow Tan, who has advocated for Chinese seniors, and Audrey Siegl, a member of the Musqueam band. But Marquez argued that many of COPE’s candidates, and especially Wong, failed to convince minority communities that a COPE administration would advance their interests.

      He suggested that Wong could have made herself more visible in the push to make Vancouver a “sanctuary city” that provides safe haven for undocumented immigrants. Marquez also accused Wong of being absent in the fight against taller buildings in Chinatown and other gentrification battles faced by Chinese neighbourhoods. “Where was she?” he asked.

      Marquez charged Wong with missing a great opportunity to impact how political campaigns are run in an increasingly multicultural city.

      “In San Francisco, we actually had debate forums in Cantonese," he recalled. "That could have happened here. She could have called for that."

      Nicholas Ellan, a former COPE member who often offers constructive criticism of the party, thinks he has an answer to that question. He proposed that Wong’s bid for mayor was primarily about a future run for federal office.

      “She didn’t draw on her voter base in Vancouver South to spend on the campaign,” Ellan said. “That would have been a bad idea because she has a nomination coming up and will likely be running for the federal NDP next year.”

      Instead, Ellan continued, Wong focused on COPE's policy platform, regardless of whether those ideas touched a chord with Chinese voters.

      "I think that Meena Wong approached it realistically, as a campaign that couldn’t be won, and she deployed her resources accordingly," he said. "She focused on getting as much media coverage as possible through a very clever campaign that headlined a couple of unusual policies that the party was pursuing, and it worked."

      Ellan also called attention to COPE’s executive committee and staff, which, he noted, are not nearly as multicultural as the group of candidates it recruited. “The party is structured around old white people,” Ellan concluded.

      In a telephone interview, Wong conceded that COPE did not attract enough support from many constituencies. But she took issue with ethnicity being a factor, saying she expected more support from women, for example.

      She claimed that the response she received from Chinese supporters was positive. "The Chinese community and the Chinese media, the feedback from them said that we had the best-run campaign, that we were the ones talking about issues," she said.

      Regarding a possible run with the NDP in 2015, Wong maintained it was too early to comment.

      Tristan Markle, a member of COPE’s executive committee, argued that COPE’s efforts to run a diverse slate did bear fruit.

      “If you look at school board, Diana Day got the most votes [among COPE candidates],” he said. “That’s because she pounded the concrete and had great support from First Nations and indigenous candidates across the Hastings corridor and Grandview-Woodlands.”

      Neil Monckton is a former COPE treasurer who has worked on a number of political campaigns in Vancouver. He told the Straight that a predominantly white staff is a problem shared by most political organizations in Vancouver.

      “I doubt that any of the backrooms were terribly diverse,” Monckton said of this year’s election.

      He similarly noted that COPE wasn’t the only party that struggled to attract votes for its visible-minority candidates. Vision’s slate was also ethnically diverse, Monckton said, but many of the people who made it diverse were not elected.

      He mentioned Niki Sharma as one example. Vision’s Naveen Girn, Sammie Jo Rumbaua, Tony Tang, Ken Clement, and Cherie Payne also lost on November 15.

      Monckton said it can be "very tough" getting a person of South Asian decent elected in Vancouver, and difficult for any minority candidate to convince another ethnic group they share the same interests.

      “Do Chinese voters support South Asian candidates? Do South Asian voters support Chinese candidates?” he asked. “We have all sorts of theories on whether they do or don’t.”

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      Comments

      23 Comments

      Tommy Khang

      Nov 19, 2014 at 12:22pm

      Uh it clear that COPE really doesn't have a clue, Chinese Canadians are traditionally socially conservative and pro-business - these are two things that COPE is very much against. This is further exemplified on a national level with Chinese Canadians more likely to support and thus vote for Federal Conservatives.

      COPE really failed as a party due to campaigning on poorly though out policies that appealed only to their traditional base and not too the vast majority of the uninformed electorate. I find it rich that COPE is still congratulating themselves for such a "good result" (Tristian Markle in the tyee) even though they got absolutely trounced in all the polls. The Left Front controlled COPE has single handled managed to systematically destroy what once was a great party in Vancouver. I really doubt that COPE can recover from this showing by 2018.

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      slate too big for Vancouver

      Nov 19, 2014 at 12:24pm

      COPE ran way too many candidates given the current climate of big money spending by Vision and the NPA. Would a smaller slate have yielded more success?

      The Green Party on the other hand elected 4 out of 7 candidates. The curious pattern appeared that all 4 elected Greens were white and straight (vs. the visible minority and gay candidates who were not elected).

      Perhaps COPE should have run a mayoral candidate, 2-3 Council candidates, 1 for Park Board and 2 for School Board. Running fewer candidates concentrates the vote. Other strategies can't compete with the millions of corporate dollars backing the two big parties.

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      RUK

      Nov 19, 2014 at 12:42pm

      Supporting down and outers with tax money is not really on the radar of first generation immigrants, who are far red-neckier than their grandchildren who have been studying liberal arts and use phrases like "divestment" and "unceded" in daily conversation. COPE wants to appeal to the underclass because it works for the underclass, but the underclass either doesn't vote or is in aspirational mode. It's a thankless position for Meena Wong and the other COPE hopefuls to be in because in principle they are the progressive voice here.

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      Correction

      Nov 19, 2014 at 1:33pm

      It's quoted here: “In San Francisco, we actually had debate forums in Cantonese ... That could have happened here. She could have called for that."

      But in fact Wong was part of at least four Cantonese forums and debates, several in Mandarin, both in town halls and on radio. In these forums Wong and Tan also vocally opposed tearing down Chinatown for condo towers, and had an alternative proposal for rehabilitation of historic Chinatown.

      Victor

      Nov 19, 2014 at 1:35pm

      The biggest factor is funding. COPE had an excellent campaign based on votes/$.

      In the end, voters have to turn out if they want change. By staying home, they endorsed the status quo. Luckily for Vision, there was a right wing split in the form of Vancouver First. Otherwise, Council and School Board (had NPA kept Denike adn Woo) would be NPA majority.

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      Scratch & Win

      Nov 19, 2014 at 1:58pm

      Didn't Nicholas Ellan work for "OneCity" in this election? Disclosure?

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      OMG

      Nov 19, 2014 at 2:12pm

      I remember reading some comments that when Wong announced her candidacy for mayor, this automatically guaranteed she would get a sizable amount of the Asian vote. I thought this was short-sighted since I assume that most people vote for those candidates or parties that benefit them and their families, rather than them having the same racial heritage.

      It would be interesting to find out which parties the large ethnic populations voted for. I just assumed it was the NPA and Vision, since they got most of the vote in general. But I could be wrong.

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      "the asian vote"

      Nov 19, 2014 at 2:51pm

      What the heck is that? It's really weird that people identify racialized populations as blindly meant to vote for people. And I'm pretty sure it's established that people correctly identify who holds the power already (systemically and institutionally) and prefer to get some of that in general. Look at Surrey's election, for Pete's sake.

      So I guess I am agreeing with OMG.

      Oh my god.

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      OMG

      Nov 19, 2014 at 2:58pm

      @"the asian vote"

      Richmond - the most Asian of Metro Vancouver cities, once again voted in an old, white guy. It was a landslide. So age, gender and skin colour does not appear to matter in at least one city. Vancouver should take note of this.

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      Xander Davis

      Nov 19, 2014 at 5:44pm

      Look at Elections Canada site for the last results in Vancouver South riding where Meena Wong ran (for the NDP) against a South Asian (Liberal) and someone else.
      Then see Statistics Canada profile of the Federal Electoral District (FED).

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