Potential aboriginal candidate for Vancouver council impresses COPE’s David Chudnovsky

by Carlito Pablo on July 20th, 2011 at 2:00 PM

An aboriginal candidate may vie for a nomination from the Coalition of Progressive Electors.

COPE executive member David Chudnovsky told the Straight in a recent phone interview that Colin Desjarlais has expressed interest in a possible council candidacy.

As far as Chudnovsky can tell, Vancouver has never had an aboriginal member of council.

The Straight has not been successful in its effort to interview Desjarlais.

But according to Chudnovsky, Desjarlais is a “very interesting guy”.

“He has a lot of experience of community work in Vancouver,” Chudnovsky said. “He’s very committed to aboriginal and broader issues. I was impressed with the guy actually.”

The former NDP MLA and education activist Helesia Luke comprise COPE’s candidate search committee.

An online search shows that Desjarlais is a member of the board of the Mount Pleasant Community Centre Association.

“Our process will require us in the next few weeks before the end of the summer to contact everybody who’s indicated that they’re interested in running,” Chudnovsky said. “We’ll have to talk to them.”

If Desjarlais follows through, that would give COPE at least five contestants for the three council slots it has to fill for this year’s November civic election.

Comments

2 Comments

james green

Jul 20, 2011 at 11:32pm

This is the kind of tokenism that makes me sick. One's race, colour, gender, religion, should have nothing to do with who should run for council. As if being Aboriginal is something Cope cares about. Instead of pushing for this kind of tokenism why don't Cope and David table a plan to help pull so many of the aboriginal people in this city out of the problems they experience including racism.
Being part indegenious myself, I find this attempt to garner votes and enhance COPE'S image extremely troubling.
Next thing Chadnovsky will tell is some of his best friends are aboriginal.