Talk Elections

BC goes to the polls on Saturday. What's exciting about them is the fact that some places (including Vancouver) have municipal parties.

I haven't been paying much attention yet, but there has been some news about the Occupy protests in Vancouver. Left leaning mayor Gregor Robertson wants to shut down the protest, and will likely alienate his base. Will be interesting to see what happens.

Basically, Vancouver has 3 main parties, two of which run in the mayoral election. There is the right wing "Non Partisan Association" (i.e. Tories and BC Liberals) and the left wing Vision Vancouver (federal Liberals, NDPers) which is Robertson's party. On city council, the Coalition of Progressive Electors also runs, which is more left wing.  They have a few seats. Note, Vancouver is the largest city in Canada with no municipal ward system, all 10 council seats are elected at large. That's why even in close elections, one party will often dominate council. (they had a referendum to move to a ward system, and it was defeated!) There is also the Vancouver Green Party, which is running former BC Green leader Adrienne Carr for council.

I don't know anything about any of the other races, I'll have to read up on them. Anyone else paying attention?

BTW, some 2008 maps:

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A guy I know is running for parks board.

To make things even more interesting, like in 2005, COPE and Vison have formed an electoral alliance of sorts: Vision will run 7 (-1 from 05) candidates for council, COPE runs 3 (+1). The greens oddly have allied themselves with NPA. They have a similar agreement in place for the School Board and Parks Board.
Some incumbent councillors aren't running; George Chow (VV) lost the NDP nomination for the provincial riding of Vancouver-Fraserview to Gabriel Yue (i'm happy with that); Cadman (COPE) lost his spot on the COPE slate in a surprise vote to Tim Louis who used to be on council, and is know for being much more left-wing and opposed the VV/COPE agreement. Umm the only others i can think of is on the Parks board, Woodcock (COPE) and Hundal (VV) are not running. I know Hundal is the NDP candidate in Surrey-Tyndal for the next provincial.

To prove Teddy's point about the at-large systems allowing one dominant party; in Burnaby Derek Corrigans (sound familiar? his wife is a NDP MLA) BCA (Burnaby citizens Association) holds all the elected posts... all of them.

I was trying to find polls but no luck; I'm hearing (mostly from rabble.ca so biased lefties) but COPE should win all three, NPA is expected to do well but there are no incumbents so... maybe 1-3; leaving VV to hold the balance... probably 5-6. Robertson is expected to win BUT the polls for Anton are all over the map... i saw her with anywhere from 41% to 27%.

Most large cities mirror Vancouver, in Surrey like Burnaby they have a Surrey Civic Coalition (NDP, left Liberal leaning) current Mayor Watts and her Surrey First slate hold all the council seats in this case too.
The only major city i saw was Victoria where there are really no current council slates, they all seem to be independents.

Thanks for your input, lilTommy. BTW, it was my point about at-large systems, not Teddy's ;-)

It appears that the SCC will not be running a candidate for mayor. It seems odd, isn't there enough left wing areas of Surrey to make a race competitive?

By the way, in Burnaby the main opposition party is Team Burnaby. They have no seats on council, though as you mentioned. They are running Tom Tao for mayor against Corrigan.

From looking at all the municipal party sites, it appears the left wing parties tend to go with green and blue, while the right wing parties like red and blue.

Some other races:

Former councillor Richard Lee is challenging mayor Malcolm Brodie in Richmond. (interestingly for a city full of Asians, there is only one on council, Derek Dang!, but this problem is not unique to Richmond, many high visible minority cities in Ontario have few minorities on their councils)

In Abbotsford, Mayor George Peary is being challenged by 4 other candidates.

Councillor Barrie Lynch is challenging mayor Richard Stewart in Coquitlam.

Mayor Frank Leonard is being challenged in Saanich by David Cubberley and David Shebib.

Mayor Sharon Shepherd face four opposition candidates in Kelowna.

Those are all the cities with 100000+ people.

ooh... results will all be posted here: http://www.civicinfo.bc.ca/

candidates for all of BC here: http://www.elections.civicinfo.bc.ca/2011/index.asp?logintype=M

If you don't live in a municipality, apparently the regional districts are also having elections for the rural seats on their councils (I believe the urban seats are filled by municipal councillors, mayors)

Oh my appologies Hatman, i looked at the last post and not who actually posted that comment :P

Well COPE isn't running a mayor candidate either but they are endorsing Robertson again... but your right, its odd that SCC isn't running a candidate in a field of 8, their could be a number of progressives running. They also might be trying to put all their resources in winning a council seat.

Saanich should be one of the interesting ones on the Island, Cubberley was an NDP MLA and both he and Leonard have big backers, should be a fight.

The only other cities were missing is Langley, North Van, Kamloops, Nanaimo and Prince George (last three 50K + but all outside the lower mainland)

VV is getting some heat for having very few (only one i think) south asian candidates (considered a huge target group, and one they need to win in the South/SE to win seats). The North East, and West end seem to be VV and Cope territory, while the West, South West is NPA lands... so the battle really is in the SE area (see above maps), and all you have to do is look at the results in Vancouver South in May where the NDP/LIB/C's all were in play.

Yeah, the real battle is the south of Vancouver, and parts of the west end...

Ive been looking through some of the races, and there are municipal parties in some of the smaller municipalities. Delta has a few, for example. The governing party in Langley Twp is their only party, and there appears to be an opposition party running in Victoria, as the only party there.

Here's my blog post about the elections: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.com/2011/11/british-columbia-municipal-elections.html

Polls close at 8pm Pacific / 11pm Eastern.

Tonight?

Yes.

Where can I see results?

http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/elections/2011election/
Coverage starts soon. I hope my friend wins.

2 of 135 polls in. Robertson leads 1169 to 342

AND MY FRIEND IS IN 5TH!!!! 7 TO BE ELECTED WHOO HOO!!!

Anton leads 7891 to 7312 for Robertson, 5 of 135

Damn it. I'm smart enough to know that my friend wont win. Robertson however maintains a lead with 21 polls in, 18,904 to 16,247

If I check the map, Robertson will be reelected.

Current Map
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Robertson has it sewen up and my friend has pulled back into 7th!

COPE was washed away.
VV will have 7 seats. NPA will have 2.
The last one is a race between Adriane Carr, the former Green leader and a NPA candidate.

I correct myself, the race for the last seat is between NPA, Carr and COPE. 224 votes separating all of them.

Congratulations to Mayor Robertson on his reelection.

Looks like my friend got elected!!!

the final council seat will be decided by 90 votes.

Vision will have a majority on all boards. COPE will be on the school board, with 3 NPA, and my friend will be joined with other Vision people, and 2 NPA people, on the Parks board.

Carr elected!

Carr wins by 91 votes lead on COPE, the NPA candidate which was 10th for most of the night (and until the last precinct!) finish 12nd, finally.

I am disappointed that COPE was shut out.

The 2011 popular vote result is about the same as in 2008. The map does some voting shifts. Surprised that the NPA was able to win some parts on East Van. They also increased their support in the south of the city. However, Robertson increased his support in the central and NW parts of the city.

COPE are an embarrassment, so it's probably a good thing - if the goal is to keep the city outside the hands of the NPA.