VANCOUVER

After twenty years

returns in COPE headquarters.

This is my last week of commentary as
an alderman. I began this column with
my election to Vancouver city council in
December of 1966 and have continued it
for 20 years without a break.

Twenty years as an alderman and 13
years as a community activist before then
have demonstrated two simple yet pro-
found truths to me. The'first is the abso-
lute need for unity for all the reform
forces at the municipal level.

The second, and no less important, is
the need for constant activity by the

reform forces 12 months a year, around

issues as they arise and based on a pro-
gram clearly expressing the concerns of
working people and small business who
make up 90 per cent of the population.

Since 1936 the parties of big business
(Conservatives, Liberals and after 1952,
Social Credit) have united in civic politics
within the Non-Partisan Association.
Their slogan was “keep politics out of
city hall,” but what they really were after
was to keep labor or reform politics out
of city hall. They kept control of city hall
until 1982.

The Electors Action Movement,
which was formed in 1968 as a breaka-
way group from the NPA and which
briefly controlled city council in the

1970s, quickly disintegrated and is now

Har

Rankin

back with the NPA. The strength of the
NPA has rested on this coalition of all
right-wing, big business forces.

The Committee of Progressive Elec-
tors, which was established on the initia-
tive of the Vancouver and District Labor
Council in 1968, was the first concerted
effort to unite all reform forces under one
umbrella. In its first two years, this effort
at unity met with limited success. The
NDP also ran slates for civic office. The
result was that those seeking reform at
city hall were divided and for 12 years I
was the only COPE candidate elected.

In 1980 the situation changed. Again,
on the initiative of the Vancouver and
District Labor Council, a form of unity
was achieved between COPE and an
NDP group running as civic independ-
ents. In 1982 and 1984 this unity resulted
in a labor-backed majority at city hall
and for a time also on the school board.

Unity: of the reform forces is, of
course, no absolute guarantee of victory.
Sometimes the right-wing coalition, with
its unlimited corporate funding and its
monopoly of the media and its ability to
mould public opinion, is able to defeat
progressive reform forces. That hap-
pened this year, not only in the Nov. 15

column ‘takes 30°

TEN YEARS BACK ... Victorious Ald. Harry Rankin check

le

s 1976 election

civic election, but also-in the Oct. 22
provincial election.

But one thing is certain — electoral
victory is not possible without a coalition
of all the reform forces. I stress this point
because already some people are being
urged by the corporate controlled media
and its columnists to break with COPE.
They would like to see a return to the
days when COPE and the NDP each ran
slates because then the NPA could con-
tinue to coast easily to victory.

We’ve won many victories at city hall,
even before we had a labor-backed
majority. There was a time, not so long
ago, when tenants were not allowed to
vote on money bylaws, when city council
refused to hear citizen delegations, when
council meetings were held only in the
afternoon at a time when citizen delega-
tions couldn’t attend, when city health
and building bylaws were simply disre-

garded by slum landlords and greedy ~

contractors, when developers could get
anything they wanted from NPA coun-
cils.

This was changed not only by the elec-
tion of reform candidates to council but
by the continuous pressure brought on
council at every meeting by citizen dele-
gations, and by the campaigns waged
across the city by citizen groups. That

was how, for example, the entrance to
Stanley Park was saved from the devel-
opers, and how the plan to criss-cross the
whole city with ugly freeways was
defeated.

The lesson is that reforms are won not
only in council but also by the activities
by citizen groups outside of council in the
form of meetings, delegations, demon-
strations, petitions, and a dozen other
methods of demonstrative public actions.

COPE and other reform forces can
make a comback, can win what they
have lost. They can win majorities on city
council, the school board and the parks
board if they stay united and keep up the
pressure by citizen activity the year
round.

The present NPA council won’t do
anything for Vancouver or its people,
anymore than will Mulroney or Vander
Zalm. All of them will do it to us, not for
us. The present NPA council has not a
few members who have attitudes similar
to the greedy Tory cabinet ministers who
have been getting into trouble.

There will be no lack of issues. A uni-
ted and active reform movement will be
an attractive alternative by the time of
the next civic election.

of Liberals and

2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, DECEMBER 3, 1986

COPE must forge
left-centre unity

By JIM QUAIL

During the civic elections in Vancouver
on Nov. 15 we in the Committee of Progres-
sive Electors (COPE) and our allies suffered
a serious electoral setback at the hands of
the city’s right wing forces. We lost four
crucial city council positions, eight of the
nine seats on school board and our three
parks board positions. But rather than des-
pair, we should engage in an objective anal-
ysis of the political outcome.

That analysis shows that the support for
civic reform forces remains firm, while the
electoral successes of the pro-big business
groupings is based on a shaky premise.

For close to 20 years, there was a signifi-
cant split among the right-wing forces in
Vancouver civic poitics. One was The Elec-
tors Action Movement (TEAM), incorpo-
rating generally the Liberal Party and the
big corporate developers.

The other camp, the Civic Non-Partisan
Association. (NPA), was oriented toward
the Social Credit party and the city’s mer-
chantry.

The right-wing of the NDP aligned itself’

with TEAM until ousted ina power struggle

in 1976, when Jack Volrich beat Michael

Harcourt for the mayoral nomination.
TEAM ’s alliance [

right-wing social
democrats began to
disintegrate. How-
ever, some degree of
division in the city’s
businesscommunity | _
persisted, and_all-
out unity of the
right remained elu-
sive. -
This -began to QUAIL
change sooner after the November, 1984
election, and was noticeable during the 1985

_ byelection for Bruce Yorke’s aldermanic

seat. By then, a new group led by Brian
Calder had taken control of the organiza-
tion. They had driven out the most obstruc-
tive elements of the “‘old NPA” and began
re-formulating their political alignment. In
a move that now looks rather ominous, they
chose Bill Vander Zalm to head their 1984
slate. : a2

The new board of directors was domi-
nated by realtors and land developers,
many formerly of TEAM.

By the spring of 1986, the TEAM/NPA
rift had been effectively healed (Walter
Hardwick quit as head of TEAM in pro-
test.). Under pressure from a string of victo-
ries by COPE and our allies, the right-wing
closed ranks under the name of the NPA.

While mayoral contender Gordon Camp-
bell’s propaganda claiming that the NPA
now encompassed every political stripe was
grossly exaggerated, certainly the new NPA
had achieved greater breadth and by elec-
tion time incorporated many influential
Liberals. The organization was poised to
present itself as a “moderate,” centre-
oriented group, and to disown its own
record. The political transformation of the
province by the Socreds under Vander
Zalm, and the perceived success of Expo, set
a climate of falsely-optimistic “boosterism”
that facilitated this process quite decisively.

Meanwhile, what was going on among
the left?

Here, the main factor was the departure
of Harcourt. While throughout his mayoral
career he never endorsed -COPE or
COPE/Unity, pressure from the Vancouver
and District Labor Council and from rank-
and-file civic activists made an objective
alliance of Harcourt’s Civic Independents
and COPE possible. This was the essence of
the “labor-unity” force, which built an

alliance of the left with a substantial part of |
the political centre. The NPA was largely
isolated on the right.

When Harcourt moved on, COPE’s
main bridge to the centre was lost. Efforts
were made to re-create that left-centre unity,
by such moves as facilitating Ald. Bill Yee’s
decision to run again, and joining forces to
the extent possible with the remnants of the
Civic Independents.

Yee’s showing on Nov. 15 is indicative of
our inability to recreate that bridge. His
vote tumbled-by a catastrophic 13,000 — far
more than any other incumbent. Without
Harcourt, the Civic Independents were
unable to summon either political credibil-
ity or organizational muscle. -

What COPE achieved in 1986 was left
unity — the most powerful left unity ever.
Our support from labor, from NDP
members and constituencies, and from left-
wing activists was much greater than in the
past. We attracted 30 percent more election
workers than in 1984. Despite the NPA’S: —
plunder of the centre, and their. million
dollar-plus campaign, and all of the red-
baiting, and everything they could throw at
us, COPE’s base slate vote actually rose by.
some two thousand.

However, at the present stage of the
struggle; the:left and labor are-not strong
enough to win by themselves. Civic politics
is by nature coalition politics, and we must
re-capture the support of a part of the cen=
tre.

To place things in perspective, while the
NDP won more provincial votes in Van?
couver than did the Socreds, they were oul”
polled by the combined Socred-Li
vote.

Of course, there was a myriad of other
factors. The provincial election disrupté
our campaign, stalled our efforts to regain
the ground that Campbell had bought by
dint of months of media advertising, amt
demoralized many among the left ane
working class. For all of our phoning a?
doorknocking and pleading on the 15th,
thousands upon thousands of our identifie®
supporters simply did not go to the polls. In
many east-side polls, the turnout was we
less than the number of identified COPE/
NDP supporters. It appears therefore that
NDP voters switching support to the NP
was a relatively much smaller factor.

There were also organizational facto!
We improved our organizational work WI"
each campaign, and 1986 saw dramatl¢
progress in this regard.

It should be noted that COPE remains
powerful organization, and the only vo!
of the people in Vancouver politics. V"
alliances within labor and the left rem
strong. Our base of electoral support is V°
impressive. an

The NPA, on the other hand, faces i
problems in maintaining its position. Bi
objective differences that caused the origi
TEAM/NPA split have not gone away: i
Even among its elected caucuses, c
NPA has serious divisions. The elect
members will have great difficulty maintall”
ing their front of “moderation” and “pe
tiveness” while paying off their mas*
political debts. can

Above all, they face a strong oppositi?
force, that will re-double its base in the Ls
roots of the community, and hammer he.
relentlessly at every opportunity. 4 can

Civic politics is highly fluid, ao east
develop with breaktaking speed. If we leé es
the proper lessons of Nov. 15, and obj@
tively assess our own situation and , f
enemy’s, we face bright possibilities
1988. mit
Jim Quail is the president of the Com:
tee of Progressive Electors.

-