Lori Culbert - Yesterday
While Vancouver voters elected a more conservative council in Saturday’s municipal elections, many Metro Vancouver cities backed more progressive candidates — a reflection of changing demographics in some suburban cities where younger voters want more action on affordable housing and other pressing issues, experts say.
Signs post election on W. 6th ave. in Vancouver on Sunday.© Provided by Vancouver Sun
“We have a bit of an irony of Vancouver going quite decisively conservative, and outlying places going more progressive,” Hamish Telford, a political scientist at the University of the Fraser Valley, said Sunday.
“Lots of younger people left Vancouver to find more affordable housing, and they’re changing the demographics of the outlying communities.”
Some new Metro Vancouver mayors-elect with platforms that included major housing promises include Meghan Lahti , who easily beat an anti-growth contender in Port Moody; Dan Ruimy , who defeated the former mayor in Maple Ridge; Eric Woodward in Langley District, who toppled other candidates, including former Liberal provincial cabinet minister Rich Coleman; and Nathan Pachal in Langley City, who campaigned on addressing homelessness, unseated the previous mayor.
Perhaps the most radical shift in suburban politics, Telford said, was the Chilliwack school board, where a slate of progressive trustees was elected. Former controversial trustee Barry Neufeld , who was against sexual orientation and gender identify curriculum in schools, is out; Teri Westerby , believed to be one of the first transgendered men elected to public office in Canada, is in.
In Vancouver, Mayor-elect Ken Sim is more conservative than the incumbent he overthrew, Kennedy Stewart, who had promised 220,000 new homes over 10 years. Sim’s new ABC party also won a big majority on council, school board and park board, which perhaps reflects the large number of “older guard” homeowners in the city who bought their properties years ago, Telford said.
But Vancouver tends to be more progressive than other Canadian cities, so Sim’s business-friendly ABC party still included liberal platform promises around mental health and the overdose crisis, added Quest University political scientist Stewart Prest.
Political analyst Stewart Prest at Douglas College© Francis Georgian
Related video: New mayors elected in several B.C. cities as voters call for changeDuration 2:02 View on Watch
And the outgoing Vancouver council, under Kennedy Stewart who was elected in 2018 as an independent, was very fractured; it should be easier for Sim, with his ABC majority, to get things done, Prest added.
Sim has a challenge, though, to fulfil some of his key promises, such as hiring 100 new police officers and 100 new nurses/mental health workers, which will be “expensive and difficult to accomplish,” Prest said.
Sim has also vowed to improve the complex construction permitting process, which is a good thing, said UBC associate professor and housing expert Nathanael Lauster. But it may be difficult to fulfil his promise to approve home renovations in three days, single-family homes in three weeks, and medium-sized projects in three months.
UBC associate professor and housing expert Nathanael Lauster on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2022.
© NICK PROCAYLO
The new ABC council is not likely to entertain proposals endorsed by centre-left parties, such as allowing apartment complexes in every neighbourhood, but will presumably back more developments along major streets, Lauster said.
ABC’s majority should give Vancouver’s council some stability as the city grapples with the ongoing pandemic and a feared recession, said Ginger Gosnell-Mayers, a member of the Nisga’a and Kwakwak’awakw Nations, a fellow at SFU’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, and Vancouver city hall’s first Indigenous Relations Manager.
But she hopes that Sim’s vow to hire more police won’t lead to “criminalizing people on the street,” and that his promise to speed up the permitting process won’t lead to fewer commitments by developers to build low-income housing, as well as units for families and those with disabilities.
Ginger Gosnell-Myers© Francis Georgian
Outside of Vancouver and Surrey, Metro Vancouver’s smaller cities have shown at the ballot box they want change to deal with wide-spread concerns such as the poisoned drug crisis and the climate-caused atmospheric river and heat dome,” Gosnell-Myers said. “Small cities, perhaps, get a chance to lead on what progressive agendas actually look like.”
Across Metro Vancouver there was “ a surprising number of mayors defeated,” Prest said . This list includes West Vancouver, where Mark Sager is the mayor-elect, and in White Rock, where Megan Knight now has the top job.
In Surrey, McCallum appeared to have won in 2018 by promising to take the RCMP out of the city, and Locke appeared to beat him on Saturday by promising to bring the force back — which illustrates how polarizing this issue has been for residents, Prest said. And with Locke’s slim majority on council, it may be difficult for her to get the backing she needs to embark on the expensive process of stopping the transition to a municipal force, which will require support from the provincial government.
“It’s a divided city,” Prest said of Surrey. “The promise to to unwind the local police force, and to return to the RCMP, is one that will be really difficult to follow through on.”
lculbert@postmedia.com
Related
Langley Election Results: Eric Woodward defeats Rich Coleman in bid for mayor
The new ABC council is not likely to entertain proposals endorsed by centre-left parties, such as allowing apartment complexes in every neighbourhood, but will presumably back more developments along major streets, Lauster said.
ABC’s majority should give Vancouver’s council some stability as the city grapples with the ongoing pandemic and a feared recession, said Ginger Gosnell-Mayers, a member of the Nisga’a and Kwakwak’awakw Nations, a fellow at SFU’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, and Vancouver city hall’s first Indigenous Relations Manager.
But she hopes that Sim’s vow to hire more police won’t lead to “criminalizing people on the street,” and that his promise to speed up the permitting process won’t lead to fewer commitments by developers to build low-income housing, as well as units for families and those with disabilities.
Ginger Gosnell-Myers© Francis Georgian
Outside of Vancouver and Surrey, Metro Vancouver’s smaller cities have shown at the ballot box they want change to deal with wide-spread concerns such as the poisoned drug crisis and the climate-caused atmospheric river and heat dome,” Gosnell-Myers said. “Small cities, perhaps, get a chance to lead on what progressive agendas actually look like.”
Across Metro Vancouver there was “ a surprising number of mayors defeated,” Prest said . This list includes West Vancouver, where Mark Sager is the mayor-elect, and in White Rock, where Megan Knight now has the top job.
In Surrey, McCallum appeared to have won in 2018 by promising to take the RCMP out of the city, and Locke appeared to beat him on Saturday by promising to bring the force back — which illustrates how polarizing this issue has been for residents, Prest said. And with Locke’s slim majority on council, it may be difficult for her to get the backing she needs to embark on the expensive process of stopping the transition to a municipal force, which will require support from the provincial government.
“It’s a divided city,” Prest said of Surrey. “The promise to to unwind the local police force, and to return to the RCMP, is one that will be really difficult to follow through on.”
lculbert@postmedia.com
Related
Langley Election Results: Eric Woodward defeats Rich Coleman in bid for mayor
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