COPE buckles

COPE pulls half its slate and sits out the race for mayor

by Reed Eurchuk

COPE finally knuckled to the pressure of various labour leaders and agreed to run a severely curtailed group of candidates for the fall election. The agreement, brought to COPE membership for a second time despite the fact it had been soundly defeated a first time, commits COPE to run only five candidates for city council, eight for school board and five for parks board. COPE will also not run a mayoralty candidate.

The decisive factor forcing COPE’s hand is money. Carrying a large debt of about $170,000 while only months away from an election, and with very public threats of withholding funds made by their main historical backers, COPE’s agreement came with heavy arm-twisting.

Just what the agreement entails from the other side remains unknown. Officially, Vision Vancouver has stated that deal-making with COPE is off. They have also threatened to run a full slate of candidates. They have, as yet, not even let their policies be known. COPE seems willing to sign a one-sided agreement that does not stipulate the obligations of the other party (Vision Vancouver).

In their last membership meeting, a similar motion was defeated. The repeated motion came with many members complaining that it is an affront to the question of party democracy. COPE has always prided itself as a membership-driven organization, not a top-down organization.

The entrance of Christy Clark into the municipal campaign has been a god-send to those wishing to forge a deal between COPE and Vision. Clark is portrayed as an extreme conservative with bottomless pockets and a puppet of local elites. The caricature is used to rally those on the left of the spectrum to ringing cries of solidarity, but it is difficult to imagine how Clark would be much different from the Vision group, who have been uniformly pro-development in their time in power.

Meanwhile, COPE will be surrendering some of its independence, even if the arrangement is “tactical” as some say, and not substantive, i.e. not an agreement based on principles or politics. The basis will be one of, “Keep Christy Out!” Clark will then be playing the role John Kerry’s Democrats assigned to Bush Jr in the last American campaign.

It seems odd that a party with a history like COPE’s can be forced into an agreement with such an unknown entity as Vision Vancouver.

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