Sam out and about with his wife Lynn Zanatta.
I failed to comment on Sam Sullivan’s launch of his “Global Civic Policy Society” (GCPS) last week, so I’d like to delve into the topic.
After reading this Vancouver Sun article on the endeavour, these were the points that stuck out for me:
- GCPS is “a new non-profit organization mostly financed by one mysterious out-of-province patron.”
- GCPS “appears to be a one-man band”
- Sullivan is pursuing the ideas that were largely rejected when he was Mayor: “How to achieve denser communities (EcoDensity, anyone?); how people can live together in dense communities (Project Civil Society); and how drug laws can be created to treat addicts as disabled patients, and not as criminals (his ill-fated Chronic Addiction Substitution Treatment program).”
- Sam’s role is still muddled – “Sullivan’s new gig seems somewhat ill-defined — and as quixotic and idiosyncratic as the man himself.”
- Sam is funded well – he has backing to have a swank launch “luncheon at the Pan Pacific Hotel,” to “travel to Singapore to check out that city’s attempts to become a greener city,” and to have an “overall annual income [that] exceeds the $120,000 he made as mayor,”
- According to Sam, “I’m just making it up as I go.”
- The promotional materials state that “Global Civic was founded by Sullivan when he was mayor.”
What all of this adds up to for me is one crystal clear fact: it’s still all about Sam, just as it was when he was Mayor.
First and foremost, I have to give Sam credit. To secure such financial backing from one individual means that someone clearly has a lot of faith in the former Mayor, and as a result of that faith, Sam has been able to carve out quite a nice gig for himself over the coming years.
That being said, this initiative is hard pressed to be characterized as anything but a self-indulgent exercise in political catch-up.
First, I find it completely disingenuous for Sullivan to claim that he is trying to keep GCPS “mean and lean” when he is drawing such a salary and spending money on exploratory trips to Singapore. What he means is that he is trying to keep the operations without staff so that he can enjoy as much as the funding as possible unencumbered by obligations.
Sam doesn’t know what exactly he is going to fill his days with, or who he is going to play “facilitator” for, or even what his end goals are (the concept of exploration seems to be the key concept here at this point), but apparently this is supposed to be the big news that people were supposed to be waiting for after it was announced on the City Caucus website some weeks back.
But even after being rejected by his former party because of his personal affinity for his own ideas, and after having neighbourhoods show plenty of opposition to his concept of EcoDensity, and after seeing politicians, academia and social activists horrified with the CAST program, and after having Project Civil City roundly rejected as a mean-spirited and antagonistic way of dealing with social problems such as homelessness, Sam continues to fight his own personal battles under the guise of advancing public policy.
I’m sorry, but I just don’t buy it. This is a man who hasn’t come to grips with his defeat (but with all due respect, he did deserve to fight the 2008 election). And now with financial support, he is going to be able to advance the ideas he never got a chance to finish.
But that’s the thing with democracy, whether manifested within a political party or as an exercise in securing the will of the people – it isn’t always neat and or convenient.
So again, I commend Sam for his ability to link up with such a fantastic way to earn a living. In fact, I am even enviours to some extent.
But can I take what Sullivan produces seriously beyond the rantings and findings of an embittered former politician who has a huge chip on his shoulder for being political wronged?
Absolutely not. And neither should and of the public, quite frankly.
