Subscribe to the print edition and enjoy The Republic in
your bathroom!
Plus, your subscription goes a very long way in helping to support The Republic and its writers and produces. It's like paying for the music you like.
Click here for details
|
Vancouver
It could get deliciously ugly
With Vancouver’s power brokers split over who to endorse, their scrapping could go public
By Kevin Potvin
|
What are people doing when they vote for a mayor? About one in three Vancouver adults will be doing just that in nine months. The act is not restricted to the few seconds inside the cardboard enclosure in the school gym on election day. It is a process that already began long before now and will linger for a few months after as well. The immediate reaction in the media to someone’s announcement that they intend to run for mayor follows months if not years of that candidate meeting privately with known campaign donors and powerful figures in the local scene—property developers, newspaper editors, criminal racketeers. These people, while sitting over breakfasts and lunches at places like the Arbutus Club and Terminal City Club, sound each other out over who their consensus choice will be. At other places, union bosses, backroom power brokers in the provincial and federal NDP, and second-tier business leaders do the same thing, finding which name is the one they want to back. By the time a person like Gregor Robertson, Peter Ladner or Allen de Genova publicly announce they’re interested in running, they already have in their pocket substantial financial commitments and personal endorsements and support, or else they wouldn’t announce they’re interested. What happens now is that groups of backers watch to see what the public reaction is to the array of candidates being presented to them through the media. Here is where previous support lined up in the media plays a key role. A photograph of Ladner backing his bicycle into his Councilors’ reserved car parking stall at City Hall will manipulate the public reaction to his announcement in accordance with the Vancouver Sun publisher’s commitments to that candidate. A lack of mention of the first declared candidate, Betty Krawczyk of the Work Less Party, indicates that she did not meet privately with the publisher. Usually by this late date, these private four-star lunches have weeded down the field to two or three people. But this election cycle has the potential to become a truly entertaining circus. The process of weeding down candidates for a variety of reasons has not been completed in private. Instead, if things unfold in the way we can only hope for, the weeding down process will play out in public and the usual backroom deals and arrangements typically obscured by early consensus agreements may well become visible this time, as though the walls of the sausage factory have fallen down. Imagine this albeit unlikely but possible scenario: Ladner opens up the NPA nomination process and inadvertently sets off a challenge for the nomination not just with incumbent Mayor Sam Sullivan but also the likes of councilor Suzanne Anton or Parks Board stiff Marty Zlotnik, opening up an ugly old wound that has split the party before. Sullivan loses, but decides to run anyway as an independent. Then Vision nominates longtime NPA Parks Board stalwart Allen de Genova, alienating the NDP wing and embarrassing NDP provincial representative Gregor Robertson, and leaving COPE’s David Cadman with no choice but to run for mayor too, since de Genova could never be endorsed as a joint candidate for COPE. On the ballot, then, would be ex-NPA leader Sullivan, current NPA leader Ladner, former NPA pillar-cum-Vision savior de Genova, ex-Vision fan and COPE default candidate Cadman, and finally sprung jailbird Krawczyk. Divided between conservative Ladner, conservative Sullivan and conservative de Genova, conservatives in the city will fall on each other with viciousness. But faced with the prospect of old left Cadman picking up the pieces, they’ll panic. After all, the next term is the biggie: the Olympics dog-and-drugged-pony show is coming to town and the mayor this time will do more for identifying the city’s elite to the global business world than any other mayor ever has. We don’t often get to see business elites and backroom fixers in the light of day in all their ugly, vicious and tasteless splendour. Such displays are usually confined to private rooms, offices and club houses like Arbutus and Terminal City with the sanitized press release being the only visible result. If things play out the way they could, we may be treated over the next few months to a public display of the way politics in this town is usually done behind closed doors. It may be a real eye-opener.
|
The Republic
print version is generously supported by the following regular advertisers:
Storm Brewing
604-255-9119
Dan's Homebrewing
692 E Hastings
Co-operative Auto Network
604-685-1393
Turk's Coffee
1276 Commercial Drive
Dutch Girl Chocolates
1002 Commercial Drive
Magpie Books and Magazines
1319 Commercial Drive
Artrageous Pictures & Framing
1256 Commercial Drive
Bouzyos Greek Taverna
1815 Commercial Drive
Magnet Hardware
1575 Commercial Drive
Uprising Breads
1697 Venables
Highlife World Music
1317 Commercial Drive
Mark's Pet Stop
1875 Commercial Drive
Abruzzo Cafe
1321 Commercial Drive
Our Community Bikes
3283 Main Street
Does Your Mother Know
Magazines Etc
2139 West 4th Ave
Kali
1000 Commercial Drive
Uncle Don
Freelance Curmudgen
on CFUR Radio, Prince George
Receptive Earth
Hemp & other Earthly delights
4168 Main Street
Geist
Magazine of Canadian ideas & culture
Momentum
Bike magazine
West Coast Seeds
Where to find the print version of The Republic:
Vancouver
Aboriginal Friendship
1607 E Hastings
Bean Around the World
10th & Trimble
Benny’s Bagels
Broadway & Larch
Big News Coffee Bar
2447 Granville
Black Dog Video
Cambie & 19th
Book Warehouse
550 Granville
632 W Broadway
2388 W 4th
Cambie Hostel
300 Cambie St
Capers Community Markets
2285 W 4th
1675 Robson
Carnegie Comm. Centre
Hastings & Main
City Square Mall
Cambie & 12th
Cuppa Joe 189-175
E Broadway
Dadabase
Broadway & Main
Danny’s Coffee
Denman & Pendrell
Denman Community Ctr
Denman & Nelson
Denman Mall
Denman & Nelson
Drive Organics
Commerical & Napier
Does Your Mother Know?
2139 W 4th
Duthie Books
2239 W 4th
East End Food Co-Op
1034 Commercial
Elysian Room
1778 W 5th
Food Stop
Commerical & Venables
Gemeral Store
312 Cambie St
Gold Coin Laundry
B-way & Waterloo
Granville Island
Public Market
Grind
4124 Main
Higher Ground
Broadway & Vine
Il Mercato
1641 Commercial
Joe's Café
1150 Commercial
Laughing Bean
Hastings & Penticton
Lugz
2525 Main Street
Magpie Magazines
1319 Commercial
Our Town Cafe
245 E Broadway
Pacific Central Station
Bus Depot
People's Co-op Books
1391 Commercial
Polonia Sausage
Nanaimo &Hastings
Rebound Health
Hastings & Kamloops
Receptive Earth
Main & King Edward
Rhizome Cafe
317 East Broadway
Simon Fraser
Downtown Foodfair
Soma
2528 Main Street
Sweet Tooth Cafe
Nanaimo & Hastings
Turk's Coffee
1276 Commercial
UBC
Student Union Building
Union Food Market
810 Union
Uprising Breads Bakery
1697 Venables
Vancouver Community College
250 W Pender
Vancouver Public Library
350 W Georgia
1661 Napier
2425 MacDonald
370 E Broadway
West Vancouver
Capers
2496 Marine Dr
West Vancouver Library
1950 Marine
Duncan
Community Farm Store
330 Duncan St
Victoria
Bean Around the World
533 Fisgard
Munro’s Books
1108 Government
University of Victoria
Graduate L0unge
Victoria Public Library
735 Broughton
Powell River
River City Coffee
4801 Joyce
Local Loco’s Music & Arts Cafe
Flying Yellow Breadbowl
4698 Ewing
Powell River Library
4411 Michigan
Kaslo
Blue Belle Bistro
302 Fourth
SunnySide Naturals
404 Front
Nanaimo
Nanaimo Public Library
Harbourfront Br
Port Place Shopping Ctr
650 S Terminal
The Green Store
Port Place
Mermaid’s Mug
357 Wesley St
Nelson
Mountain Pass Imports
402 Baker
Toronto
Moonbean Cafe
30 St. Andrew St
Future Bakery
483 Bloor St West
Oakville Peace &Ecology Centre
148 Kerr
|
The Republic of East Vancouver masthead
The Republic of East Vancouver supports no party, advocates
for no cause, represents no group, serves no master, and considers
problems with no preconceived notions. We hope to afflict the comfortable,
both materially and intellectually, and comfort the afflicted—of
both kinds as well, and we are trying to do both things at the same
time.
Publisher, Editor
Kevin Potvin
Advertising
Kevin
Potvin
Support
Dan Crawford, John Daigle,
Jack Etkin, Janis Harper, Carl Johnson, Hilary Jones, Chris King,
James Mecham, Albrecht Meyers, Peter Miller, James Pope
Contributors in this and recent issues
Bruce Alexander, Dan Adleman, Toby Alford, Kevin Annett, Santo Barbieri, Bob Broughton, Mike Bryan, Stephen Buckley, Matthew Burrows, Maria Calleja, Ron Carton, Chad Christie, Joshua Corber, Dan Crawford, Gail Davidson, Eric Doherty, Joe Donaldson, Lorena Jara Patty Ducharme, Shadia Drury, Taivo Evard, Reed Eurchuk, Farnaz Fassihi, Thomas Feakins, Anthony Fenton, Reza Fiyouyzat, Andrew Gordon Fleming, Ryan Fugger, Sasha Gagic, Matt Goody, Guy Hawkins, Spencer Herbert, John Irwin, Nick Istvaniffy, Junius, William Kay, Mike Keep, Kate Kennedy, Donald Kropp, Chris LaVigne, James Lindfield, Brian Lindgreen, Karen Litzke, Keith MacKenzie, Michael McLaughlin, Sonya McRae, Rafe Mair, Sonia Marino, Jennifer Matsui, Michael Millard, Isaebel Minty, Michael Nenonen, Wendy Nylund, Derrick O’Keefe, Stephen Osborne, Sean Orr, Evan Augustine Pederson III, Stephen Peplow, Kim Peterson, Kevin Potvin, Mary Rawson, Andrea Reimer, Erin Riley, Phil Rockstroh, Becky Scott, Jason Scott, Chris Shaw, Jeff Steudel, Alex Tegart, Scott Turner, Elbio Grosso Trentini, Patrick Vert, Chris Walker, Sean Wilkinson, Brad Zembic
For comments or suggestions, please contact the
Republic Webmaster
|
