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It's Sunday November the 6 around 1:25PM and

The City is Voting in 13 Days

Vancouver will head to the polls on November 19th to vote on a new mayor. Who will win the $115,889.57 yearly salary and the scorn of Vancouver's tough love? Do Vancouverites even care about this elections? While the 2005 city elections feature the usual long list of hopefuls, the race is usually confined to two people. This year is no different.

The two major parties fighting it out this time, the NPA and Vision, and throwing their candidates at each other. In one corner you have Jim Green (Vision). Green came into Vancouver politics with outgoing mayor Larry Campbell in 2002 and is basically running to continue that legacy. The new Vision Party was created to do just that, specifically trying "to make Vancouver the most sustainable, inclusive, liveable city in the world." Amazingly the once too radical to be mayor, the grandfatherly Green looks an awful lot like famed New York Times writer R.W. Apple Jr. Not that there is anything wrong with that. But let's face it, this is Larry Campbell's party and he took a seat at the trough in Ottawa, which is why Green is running. And the Vision party is the un-COPE, less commie alternative to the NPA. Bonus: Two days before the election you can join Jim at the 125th anniversary of The Yale which is pretty amazing.

In the other corner is Vancouver's longest serving city counillor Sam Sullivan (NPA). As the champion of the "no" side of the wards referendum in 2004, Sullivan has the support of former three time mayor Philip Owen and a bunch of conservative heavy weights like Grace McCarthy. As Only Magazine notes, "What’s truly scary is that he will probably become the next mayor and that means three years of protect the rich and eat the poor." Not that there is anything wrong with that either. The NPA candidates in general seem to be having the most fun. At least according to The Tyee's Sam Cooper who describes them as, "an X-rated comedian, a free-swinging radio host and a former actress with a history of debilitating shopping accidents together in a room?" Bonus: The Party campaign tagline: "A united team. A unified plan. A Better Vancouver" is about 6 words too long.

But if you are trying to keep score on this election, The Thunderbird offers a few Sam said-Jim said quips to think about. The polls from the last few weeks have Sullivan in the lead with 31% and Green at 26%. But the most intersting part of the numbers are that 4/10 voters are undecided and "SFU's [Kennedy] Stewart said the survey reinforces his view that most people aren't interested enough to vote. Vancouver, on average, has a voter turnout of about 35 per cent, meaning the high number of undecided are people who just don't vote." (via Vancouver Sun, October 26)

And there are a few alternatives to these two. There's Ben West, leader of the Work Less Party, a really slacking blogger Austin Spencer of Vancouver's Interest Party, and a guy who looks very, very, much like some sort of Che era radical. three time challenger Golok Zoltan Buday. Thing about mayors here is that they can go on to become Premiers or Senators, so it's almost disapointing that 2005's candidates are pretty much never going to achieve any greatness like that. Sure Mike Harcourt went on to boogie, and Gordon Campbell went on to win twice, but that's a tough act to follow.

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Comments

Posted by: bree

November 6, 2005 08:03 PM

Ben West is great. If he was running as an independent or with a real party he'd totally have my vote.

Don't assume because people don't have a clear opinion on whether they'd prefer Sam or Jim that they don't care. The fact is that neither is a particularly good candidate for mayor. I voted in advance polls, and I basically just held my nose and picked one.