Talk Elections

Vision Vancouver nominations completed today . NDP slate won from appearances, defeating uncoordinated Liberals and others.  Only Parks board and School Board up for consideration, council not being contested, with new council candidate Niki Sharma moving up form Parks Board to fill in the Council slate of eight out of ten slots.  Some Liberals expressing great disappointment with rather open NDP slate activity.

Otherwise, the NPA's mystery mayoral candidate remains mysterious, as the board have yet to announce who they have already chosen. 

Elsewhere, Surrey is going to get interesting. It is rumored that the secretive and oligarchic processes of Surrey First have already selected a replacement for Dianne Watts, who will quite likely seek federal office. Formerly SF now independent councilor Barinder Rasode is seeking to run as in independent, bringing aboard such mysteriously opposed campaign talent as Mark Marissen and Moe Shihota. 

Which party is Watts going to run for? I think she's a Conservative, right?

Is Gregor Robertson running for re-election? What are his chances of winning?

Watts could run red or blue, but I've heard through the grapevine that she is going for the Tories. 

Robertson is running again and I figure he would win. The NPA is perennially a mess. They recently expelled two school-board members after they rather sociopathically argued that more support for trans-students would be bad for the property market.  Urban agriculture and bikelanes are their Benghazi of sorts, so it's hard for people outside their bubble to take their rants seriously.  They are certainly a threat, and a well funded on at that, but they are their own worst enemy.  Left-wing COPE will likely run a mayoral candidate, which could hurt Vision, but COPE has been caving in on itself for some time now. Tim Lewis has driven out many of the less radical members. 

COPE is running a mayoral candidate? Oh dear. I know Robertson is a bit too right wing, but it could allow the NPA to win. But, at least they wouldn't do well on council. Are the Greens running a candidate? Perhaps Carr?

The Green Party in Vancouver has a history of not tilting at windmills, which is the secret of their surprising staying power. They've made deals and run strategically to maximize their influence.  They're running three candidates for council, but I've heard no word of a Mayoral candidate. Interestingly, one of their candidates, Pete Fry, is the son of the Hon. Hedy Fry. With Vision only running 8 candidates, that's a wise choice. They have much higher name recognition than COPE, and given cope's self-alienating tendencies perhaps the Greens will displace them

How pragmatic, and well... un-Green like.

http://www.straight.com/news/676081/left-front-considers-ousting-tim-louis-cope-chair

Coalition of Progressive Electors leader and all-around True-leftist Tim Louis's leadership of COPE under threat from further leftists, as though COPE was in any more need of internal turmoil

http://www.biv.com/article/20140714/BIV0109/140719972/npa-appoints-kirk-lapointe-as-vancouver-mayoral-candidate (http://www.biv.com/article/20140714/BIV0109/140719972/npa-appoints-kirk-lapointe-as-vancouver-mayoral-candidate)

NPA announces previously secret mayoral candidate, media exec, former CBC Ombudsman and UEL Resident Kirk LaPoint

Can someone explain Vancouver municipal parties?

Brendan can probably explain better, but Vision = left wing, NPA = right wing and COPE are on the far left. Greens are Greens. That's probably no better an explanation than a Wikipedia search though.

Vision is a center left brokerage party, the NPA is an anti socialist coalition party, and todays COPE is a leftist fringe. Given the strength of the center, the NPA-BC LIberal model doesn't really work anymore. Vision voters are more pragmatic NDP and all but the most cranky Liberals (including a great many BC Liberals. NPA voters are typically conservatives or more right wing Liberals. Who knows what a COPE voter looks like these days, and is suspect that the greens will take more votes. Of course, it wasn't always this way

A few years ago Christy Clark wanted to be the NPA candidate for mayor of Vancouver. She lost the nomination. The NPA is still very much a farm team for the BC Liberals. Gregor Robertson was an NDP mla before being elected mayor for Vision Vancouver.

Gregor Roberston might be a federal Liberal though. At least he has been rumoured to run for the Libs.

Apparently he came very close to running for the BC NDP leadership this year too. I get the impression that he is a bit of a left-of-centre opportunist who will run for whichever party he thinks is better positioned to win. But the fact that he is running for re-election as mayor of Vancouver in the fall of 2014 suggests he would not quit and run federally less than a year later.

That's the impression I get. From what I understand, Roberston did not particularly enjoy his time as an NDP MLA.  He's in that category of center left which can go either way, and is certainly friendly to both.   Despite the entreaties of the Liberal Party, however, he will in all likelihood not be running with us

NPA is basically a pro-corruption party.

Some believe that Vision can really be explained by Gregor Robertson's old juice company, Happy Planet.  It's the juice that everyone assumes is organic, but surprisingly isn't

Meena Wong, Former NDP Candidate in Vancouver South is seeking the COPE Mayoral nomination
Would that not be considered a good candidate for COPE, given their recent tilt to the fringe/hard-ish left? Any chance they could win a council seat? I don't see any recognizable names running for the nomination, other then Tim Louis

http://www.straight.com/news/720666/meena-wong-runs-cope-mayoral-nomination

COPE is running a mayoral candidate? Good news for the NPA

It could very well be the margin, though Vision is very energetically trying to tar LaPointe for comments on bike lanes, the Arbutus Corridor negotiations, the TransMountain Pipeline, and the Broadway Line

LaPointe's responses haven't been particularly well crafted. Though he is articulate, and intelligent, the easy sound bite takaway from what he's written in response is that LaPointe is indecisive, and stands up for little guy corporations like Kinder Morgan and Canadian Pacific being bullied by big-bad city hall.

Does he say that? of course not, but Vision will twist the knife as they are deft at doing.

Well, it would appear that Gregor has it.

I don't see how the NPA have gained any traction. They've said only a few substantive things, they aren't running a terribly well oiled operation, and they've said a few not terribly well placed things as well. 

Wong hasn't done very much to help them.

As for elsewhere, Corrigan is probably going to coast to victory, despite my distaste for him. 

Surrey is an interesting race. I haven't been on the ground, but it's three way race to succeed Watts. There have been some rather vicious false-flag videos going around the internet trying to seem like they're from McCallum

Someone has been telling Chinese families in Burnaby that the city is injecting their children with a gay-serum to make them gay. This has been traced back to canvassers for the opposition 'Burnaby-First' party.   

http://www.burnabynow.com/bbyelxn/news/gay-serum-rumour-riles-burnaby-politics-1.1490943

Elections are Tomorrow.
In Vancouver; what would be NPA's core vote, what can they expect in support with as you mentioned running on nothing and running terribly at that?
COPE is running a strong-ish candidate and has come out with a number of big bold pieces, albeit controversial as well, can we expect COPE's Wong to take a significant bite out of VV? Are they scene as enough of a threat to attract moderate NPA votes. Is there any expectation that COPE will recover from 2011 poor showing? NPA expecting to do worse?

Well, the pollsters are expecting increased turnout. The theory is that Wong has activated voters, but not converted existing voters. So in a usual election, I'd expect the NPA to bottom out at 40%, but with increased turnout going to Wong they could go into the mid thirties.  I expect Robertson will win by ten points.

As for council, polling has it that Carr is the most popular candidate, followed by Affleck, a slew of Visionites, and everyone else.  So we could see a minority council or a narrow vision council, which should be interesting.

Elections are not tomorrow, they're on the 15th.

Thanks! sorry about that, I just saw a post that said tmr... my bad

Any other races to note? Victoria?

You scared me! I haven't been following the races in BC yet (because you know, Ontario!)

Victoria is uninteresting. Dean Fortin will sweep to victory again, though the amagamation vote *could* be interesting.  A friend of mine is running for council, Andrew Reeve, may very well win a seat.

Surrey is where the interesting race is, where there are three viable candidates.

Linda Hepner  Hepner is the anointed successor to Dianne Watts, the retiring and extremely popular incumbent Mayor for 'Surrey First'. She's running on a platform of continuing things as they are. Surrey First is widely credited with respectable development of the city, though crime is an issue. Hepner is a former municipal civil servant, and was at one point on former mayor Doug McCallum's team in council.  Watts is leaving for the Federal Conservative nomination, though Surrey-First is not a federally-partisan organization. Amusingly, the joke has been that her main policy plank is building a ferriswheel on Surrey's *very industrial* waterfront.

Doug McCallum McCallum is the former Mayor of Surrey, defeated by Watts several terms ago. He is running on a keep-taxes-low and tough-on-crime platform.  McCallum is known to have associations with the Federal Conservatives.  Incidentally, I quite nearly worked for his campaign in a mercenary capacity.

Barinder Rasode Rasode is an independent councilor, formerly member of Surrey First before she and Watts had a political falling out.  She is associated with the NDP.  She is running a somewhat more thoughtful law-and-order campaign, as in one that is willing to commit sociology, but is still mostly about Surrey's terrible crime rate. I was also nearly involved in this campaign.  Interestingly enough, organizers include both Moe Shihota, who is among the least respectable NDP hacks, and Mark Marissen, among the grimier BC Liberal ones.

If anyone can find me a shapefile or at the very least a pdf or some image of the Surrey poll map used in 2011, I will make a map of the results.

I never thought to try, given then dominance of Surrey-First  

http://www.surrey.ca/files/COS_2011_Election_Results_by_Voting_Place.pdf

Upon closer inspection, Watts won every poll

I did come across this, but I'm looking for a map ;)

my point being that a map would be boring

So? Clearly boringness does not affect whether or not I have made a map in the past, why start now?

Do you know where there is a shapefile?

I've emailed them

http://www.insightswest.com/news/extremely-tight-mayoral-race-developing-in-surrey/ (http://www.insightswest.com/news/extremely-tight-mayoral-race-developing-in-surrey/)

Tight race in Surrey, say polls

Surrey has a gigantic indo-Canadian population and I wonder if they are adequately represented in an online panel...that could underestimate support for Rasode.

Is it safe to say that Hepner is the left wing candidate, McCallum the right wing candidate, and Rasode is more... populist?

I'm not so sure about that. I thought I had read that Heppner AND McCallum were rightwing candidates with Conservative party ties and that Rasode was backed by NDPers and a lot of Liberals.

Thanks. I was just looking at the poll numbers and what issues were associated with each candidate.

Surrey politics is not split along senior partisanships, though McCallum has ties to the Tories and Rasode has ties to the NDP.  McCallum and Hepner and Hepner and Rasode have all at one time been on the same ticket.  The incumbent Surrey-First ticket includes Tories like Watts and NDP like Villaneuve and formerly Rasode. 

That being said, I wouldn't call Hepner the 'left-wing' candidate, but she's perhaps the most 'stay the course' on the existing form of development in Surrey. Rasode has been backed by organized labour. 

Is it safe to say the race in Burnaby is primarily between Corrigan and Daren Hancott?

Yes, having done a quick tour through town I was surprised at the number of BF signs.  If the gay-serum allegations are true than they are very much a horrible party

Question about Vancouver City Council: Is there a gentleman's agreement as to why the parties don't run a full slate? Or is there a law, or is it something that is frowned upon by voters?

I think it's an optimization thing.  Parties don't expect to take all ten votes, so only having 8 candidates reduces the possibility that the party loses seats because the votes were spread to thinly. Vision knows that some people who will mostly vote for them will cast a vote or two for  Carr (maybe half) or Affleck or what have you

Strange; I would think it be common for people to vote for an entire slate. It has happened before where one party has won an entire slate.

Anyways, next question:

It looks like Malcolm Brodie is going to easily be re-election in Richmond? His main opponent appears to be Richard Lee who is running a (right wing) populist campaign, but his party has no seats on council and is only running one candidate.

There are several parties running four council, two of which have seats. Do you know anything about Richmond Community Coalition and Richmond First? I suppose they both support the mayor.

First bit: Polling has Adrianne Car getting 50% of the vote, and most of that has got to be otherwise Vision voters.  Furthermore, Vision may have only ran 8 candidates as a concession to the Green party to keep them off the mayoral ballot.  In 2011, it was part of an explicit coalition strategy with COPE, with three spots left for COPE's three candidates who all lost because not all that many people actually like COPE.

Second Bit: I'm not up to date on Richmond

Ahh, but why doesn't NPA run 10 candidates?

What other municipalities are you up to date on? And have you heard back from Surrey?

The mayoral race in Vancouver is getting pretty interesting.

Robertson 46%
LaPointe 41%
Wong 9%

27% Undecided

It's essentially a tossup at this point.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/surrey-election-seen-as-dry-run-for-federal-vote-in-2015/article21583649/

Nonsensical headline, but does contain some interesting details

Here's my post: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.ca/2014/11/british-columbia-2014-municipal.html Criticism expected :P

As someone who grew up in Richmond, I can say a little about this (if not too late already)

It's weird to see actual councillor slates this election. Historically turnover for Richmond city council has been very low - turnout is also abysmal, at around 20%. I know no one around my family paid attention to the elections.

As far as major issues go, council isn't that strictly divided. The only contentious issue, most of the time, is zoning and development stuff stirred by the housing boom. Whereas a wave of detached homes were developed in the 90s as part of the Terra Nova neighbourhood, now the focus is more on high-rise condos and developing the waterfront.

The Mandarin signs issue is pretty recent and probably matters because it reflects a latent dissatisfaction with the flow of Chinese immigrants into the neighbourhood. But the actual divide between the lists is still about disputes over how to tax property and approve zoning, and it seems the RCC is a ragtag group of pro-developer candidates. No list will go against Brodie, since he's been the face of this development boom and clearly did not expect to have to run any campaign arguing over cultural issues.

I don't expect Richmond to be very exciting, obviously, but the language debate is fascinating. We're well accustomed to it in Eastern Canada.

Long lines in Vancouver causing some polling stations to stay open until 8:30 and 8:45

Linda Hepner elected in Surrey. Turns out it wasn't close at all.

Close-ish in Vancouver. Robertson leading by 1400 votes with 52 of 129 polls.

Council is really weird. Vision leading, but shutout of the top 3 spots.

With 52/129, Robertson leads by 3000 votes (30400 to 26545), with 6051 votes for COPE.

Council is (with 52/129) NPA (Vision Vancouver) 6, NPA 3, Green 1. The Green candidate is topping the vote by 1500 votes, followed by Affleck and Ball from NPA, 3 Vision, 1 NPA, 3 Vision. The fight for the 10th place is between a Vision and a NPA candidate (20698 to 20041), so roughly 650 votes.

Robertson wins by a 10084 votes majority. I would call it a relative success for Vision. They won the important races, but not the school board nor the park commission. 83529 for Vision, 73443 for NPA, 16791 for COPE.

Council: Vision 6, NPA 3, Green 1. Ironically, the Vision candidates are ranked 5th to 10th, NPA 2nd to 4th and the Green topped the poll by 6000 votes.

Park Commission: NPA 4, Green 2, Vision 1. Vision topped the poll (not than it helped them)
School board: Vision 4, NPA 4, Green 1. Vision was less than 200 votes away from outright majority.

Two major upsets on Southern Vancouver Island.

Victoria
Incumbent Dean Fortin has lost to challenger Rebecca Helps by 89 votes.

Saanich
Incumbent Frank Leonard will not get a 7th term. He lost by 1026 votes to newcomer Richard Atwell.

Amalgamation referendums in the Victoria area passed in every municipality that had ballot questions, except Oak Bay (of course!).

I generally oppose amalgamations, but it if it's the most conservative part of the area that's against it, it can't all be that bad.

Unfortunately, Vancouver adopted "vote wherever you want" like they do in Australia, making mapping this election difficult.

In terms of general neighbourhoods though, it looks like the NPA picked up just one neighbourhood, West Point Grey (definitely a swing area, if you payed attention the provincial election).

Didn't Oak Bay elect a Green last time?

Indeed. Being conservative in the Victoria area means voting Green ;)