Civic Elections COPE in for the long haul, Rankin vows Continued from page 1 Key among these — as Swanson noted in a speech to COPE supporters on election night — was the cancellation of door-to- door enumeration by the NPA council in favour of a mail-in system that ultimately left between 80,000 and 120,000 residents off the voters’ list. Most of those residents were tenants and those with English as a second language, civic activists charge. Additionally, the dominance of the fed- eral election in local media in all but per- haps the final week of the civic campaign, reduced interest in the local election. Meanwhile, a perceived shift to the Tories in the final days of the federal race undoubt- . edly had its influence on the civic vote. Turnout this time was 43 per cent, down from the 49-per-cent showing in 1986. COPE president Jim Quail said he thinks a poll-by-poll analysis will show reduced voting on the working class east side, COPE’s traditional territory, and some- what increased numbers of ballots in the city’s more affluent neighbourhoods. “Big business threw everything at us. They successfully maintained their strategy of right-wing unity and it’s no exaggeration to say they spent at least $1 million in this campaign,” Quail said. As proof, Quail pointed to NPA advertis- ing, including full-page ads in Vancouver’s two daily newspaper on election eve which alone cost more than half of COPE’s ad budget (around $30,000). “They were determined to wipe us out, and they failed.” The NPA’s mail-in voter registration was one attempt to deliver the death blow, Quail noted. It was reminiscent of an earlier case where former city clerk Doug Little, later an NPA alderman, refused to do a second call- back on enumeration, which left 10,000 tenants off the voters’ list. By comparison, the next city clerk, Bob Henry, instituted a second call-back in 1980, the year COPE first scored a major electoral success. A proper enumeration would have = ’ ¥ us time and draft new legislation. es 2 Z i ae i aes COPE supporters, including Burnaby-Kingsway MP Svend Robinson (second from left), cheer civic unity victory Saturday night. “ ensured the election of Bruce Yorke, a former four-times elected COPE alderman who finished at the 11th spot, just short of a seat on the council of 10 aldermen, Quail said. He noted that several civic progres- sives, including Yorke, the Civic NDP’s David Levi, and Swanson — who received more than 45,000 votes — are in good posi- tions for the 1990 election. Yorke himself pointed out electoral gains in the election of Davies, who with 60,300 iS appeal to sit down with him at any a i Cana- avout” such renegade unions as the ODUCTORY IPTION OFFER $6 for 6 months FIBUNE INTR SUBSCR shed week! at 2681 Lemire Bc. VeK 128. 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Get a sub today 2 « Pacific Tribune, November 28, 1988 votes moved to fourth from seventh place, and Weinstein’s second placing in the school board race as examples of COPE’s continued and growing strength.-And he noted that he moved up from the 14th place he held in 1986. And, Yorke said, the election of the NDP’s Anne Beer, a local president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, shows the continued prestige of labour in the city. Yorke also said a better unified campaign — there were three separate offi- ces, each producing its own literature while distributing a Vancouver and District Labour Council unity slate card — would have produced even better results. (In pre- vious campaigns election workers from COPE and the former Civic Independents joined forces and shared offices on election day.) The NPA started out their campaign hoping to capitalize on their media-hyped image as a group of moderates with a “non- partisan” approach, and false claims of creating jobs. But they were forced to adopt some policy initiatives when civic progres- sives confronted them on the hustings over the sellout of social housing on the False Creek and Marathon harbour front devel- opments, Swanson told the COPE election rally. But she warned that progressive policies can also be misused by-the right. Instead of demanding the developers provide land for social housing, the NPA gave “theif friends” a gift by announcing a $20-million land purchase on the sites. And faced with the call for environmentally sound garbage recycling, the right-wingers announced plans to put such a service out for private tender, Swanson related. “We raised the issues that the NPA tried to hide” and the city’s progressives will be raising those questions over the next two years, she vowed. COPE’s senior alderman Harry Rankin, handily elected to an 11th term on council, acknowledged that when he lost the may- or’s race in 1986 he considered the NPA victors a ‘developers’ council” — and he saw no reason to change his position now. Rankin also predicted future victories in Vancouver. “The next time round there’s going to be a different picture. We’ll be here in the long haul. We intend to remain here, we’re firmly fixed here, and nobody’s going to blast us out of here,” he declared. Vancouver Island scores in municipal victories Political upsets and re-elections in certain civic elections around the province boded well for progressive forces on’Nov. 19. In other instances, civic progressives fought uphill battles against developer- oriented candidates. Vancouver Island fared best. In Camp- bell River, Ald. David Crosby was handily re-elected, coming in second in the polls to retain the seat he won in a council byelec- tion earlier this year. Crosby, supported by the Campbell River, Courtenay and District Labour Council, ran on issues raised during his May-November tenure on council. He called for a return of the industrial tax base to bring relief to homeowners, and enforcement over the dumping of toxic wastes by pulp mills. Crosby has been an outspoken advocate of returning Strath- cona provincial park to public use as part of the successful drive to end exploratory mine drilling in the park. He is president of the labour council, which also backed the successful campaign of Colleen Pederson for school board. Another labour backed candidate, Alexis Thuiller, received a strong vote but was not elected. In Port Alberni, labour candidates were successful in their election and re-election bids. Returned to council was Canadian Paperworkers Union member Jack Mit- chell, while retired woodworker Tom Sim- mons was elected. They join aldermen Henry Nedergard and Darlene Watts to maintain a labour majority on council. Moving west to Tofino, it was a slightly different story, as environmentalists fight- ing excessive logging in the area captured three of four available council seats. Maureen Fraser and Jim Darling joined re-elected alderman Al Pineo to put a voice for the environment on council. The three are members of Friends of Clayoquat Sound, which has been working to stop logging on Meares Island. Members of the group have been in court over protest actions to stop road building along Sulphu! Passage in the sound. Friends member John McNamee said the group calls for a community sustainable development plan that seeks the balance the interests of logging, tourism, aquaculture and fishing in the area. In Kamloops, unemployment activist Donna Biro was unsuccessful in het attempt at a city council seat. Passed was 4 plebescite on a controversial multiplex development which citizens groups, wh? helped defeat the project last year, warn will encroach on the city’s Riverside Park. Neither Lorna Morford nor Nettié Kachmar, seeking council seats for thé Association of Coquitlam Electors, werfé elected. In Surrey neither Steve Gidora nor Iqbal Kahlon of the Surrey Coalition of Progres- sive Electors were successful. However, voters did throw out incumbents who sup” ported large, controversial development projects, voting in a majority for Mayor Bob Bose’s Surrey Civic Electors.