November 26, 2010 - 12:34 pm |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
These wo former competitors have since formed a strong working relationship within City Hall, giving Vision peace within the caucus.
The landscape of BC politics right now is like nothing that observers have ever experienced before. A Premier has just stepped down, and his party is now at the beginning stages of what should be a hotly contested leadership contest. The stakes of this race are huge, as the winner becomes the new leader of the province, and the one tasked with pulling the BC Liberals out of the toilet.
Far be it for the ridiculous New Democratic Party to take an advantage of such a situation, as they are embroiled in a partial caucus revolt against their own leader. The dissidents are determined to push the envelope until Carole James walks out the door, which might happen soon with a leadership review likely coming in the new year.
If we turn our attention to the municipal scene in Vancouver, even the NPA continues to struggle with factions within their party, even as they try to rebuild the organization back into a competitive force for next year’s election. The recent party fundraiser saw Park Board Commissioner Ian Robertson and his silent supporters draw a line in the sand between them and the Sam Sullivan loyalists, while delivering a speech that showed he was most definitely going to take a shot at being the party’s Mayoral candidate. Meanwhile, Councillor Suzann Anton continues to cling to the Sullivan faithful for her base of support, making a showdown between the two an inevitability, and rehashing of all the nastiness that ensued between the Peter Ladner and Sullivan forces back in 2008. This is of course just the latest episode in a party that for many years has cannibalized its own in the name of personal politics of ambition.
Which brings me to Vision Vancouver. For a party that continues to grow as a coalition of progressive forces, the caucus has been one of the most peaceful that Vancouver’s civic political scene has seen in several terms.
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November 23, 2010 - 12:34 pm |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
The next Premier of British Columbia?
Why? Because Clark is going to make an announcement on her future in the next few days, and there are no indications that civic politics, much less running for the NPA, is on her radar.
Either Christy will continue to sit on the political sidelines and enjoy her newly signed contract with CKNW, or she will announce that she is throwing her hat in the ring for the BC Liberal leadership.
Christy has a lot of tongues wagging within BC Liberal and other circles for a number of reasons 1) She is quite popular and has plenty of name recognition within the general public 2) She is untouched by the HST or Gordon Campbell’s recent troubles 3) She still has a strong foothold within the party, making her ability to organize much easier than someone like Dianne Watts and 4) She is a progressive who comes from a strong federal Liberal background, a pedigree that might just turn the public perception of what the BC Liberals have turned into.
I think that Clark could be a game changer in consideration of who is lining up as potential candidates in that party – she could be a consensus candidate that all camps could agree upon at the end of the day.
Which brings me to the delusional NPA.
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November 15, 2010 - 12:01 pm |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
With former electeds like Chiavario, Cowie and Rogers, vcaTEAM had a respectable group of candidates back in 2002. The party's Achilles heal was the lack of a viable Mayoral candidate.
Back in 2002, I became involved with a group of municipal activists who had the the notion that the polarized politics of COPE and the NPA could use a dose of moederation, and as a result formed a new party named vcaTEAM.
The tried to take a middle of the road approach. They had established candidates (Nancy Chiavario and Alan Herbert was were both former NPA Councillors, Art Cowie was a former TEAM Councillor and Liberal MLA, and Stephen Rogers was a six-time Cabinet Minister and former Speaker of the House). They had a platform that spoke to many of the issues that are topical today (biking corridors, opening up the city to fun, adding social and affordable housing and a push to increase support for alternative forms of transportation other than the car).
At the time the NPA was in total disarray. Councillor Jennifer Clarke had organized a coup against popular former Mayor Philip Owen, and the party was divided down the middle as a result.
So it sounded like a recipe for potential success – the elements certainly were there.
And then the party introduced their Mayoral candidate very late in the game, and everything changed.
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November 10, 2010 - 3:42 pm |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
