Vision Vancouver
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Vision Vancouver is one of three parties represented on Vancouver City Council in Vancouver, Canada. Vision was formed in the months leading up to the 2005 municipal election.
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[edit] Formation
As centre-left civic party, Vision was founded by former COPE members first elected to Vancouver city council in 2002. Following that election, Mayor Larry Campbell and Councillors Jim Green, Raymond Louie and Tim Stevenson were soon dubbed "diet COPE" by the local media due to their moderate positions on taxation and development, as opposed to the more leftist "COPE Classic" Councillors.
Ongoing disagreements between the two factions led to Campbell and his allies forming an independent COPE caucus in December 2004. At the same time, supporters of Campbell and his allies created a fundraising organization independent of COPE called "Friends of Larry Campbell."
This group and its backers eventually formed a new party called "Vision Vancouver," initially to be led by Campbell. However, when Campbell announced that he would not seek a second term as Mayor, he called on Jim Green to run to succeed him. The party decided in August 2005 to run only five of a possible ten Council candidates and did not contest school board and park board slate elections.
In the election for Vancouver City Council held in November 2005, four Vision Vancouver candidates (Raymond Louie, Tim Stevenson, Heather Deal and George Chow) were elected, but the party's mayoral candidate, Jim Green, was defeated by the NPA's Sam Sullivan. Six members of the NPA were elected along with one for COPE.
[edit] Current status
For the November 2008, election, Vision has been seen as a serious contender for control of the city due to the perceived unpopularity of the Sam Sullivan Non-Partisan Association (NPA) team. On Father's Day, June 2008 Vision held an election to nominate their mayoral candidate. The choices were Gregor Robertson (a local 'Green' businessman owner of the Happy Planet juice company and a former New Democratic Party Member of the Legislative Assembly for Vancouver-Fairview), Raymond Louie (serving Vision city councillor), and Allan DeGenova (Independent Vancouver Parks Board Commissioner who defected from the NPA because of his dislike of Sam Sullivan's leadership). The original dynamic for this contest was changed when the NPA voted to replace as their mayoral candidate incumbent Sam Sullivan with longtime Councillor and businessman (editor of Business in Vancouver newspaper) Peter Ladner. Gregor Robertson is nominated to be the Vision candidate for mayor in 2008 despite his perceived similarity to the main rival NPA's candidate. The turnout for this contest was very high and many new members joined the party for this decision.
Under the direction of mayoral candidate Gregor Robertson Vision arranged a deal to unite with COPE (the party they originally split from) and the Vancouver Green Party (who have run joint slates with COPE in previous years) thus ending the eight year old rift. The new Vision party attracted many potential nominees for City, Parks and School Board positions. The nomination election (a first for Vision as the original 2005 slate had not widely contested as the party was just forming) occurred Saturday, September 20, 2008.
Gregor Robertson was elected Mayor of Vancouver over Ladner on November 15, 2008. Vision Vancouver easily secured a majority of the Vancouver City Council seats, conceding only one to the NPA.
[edit] See also
- List of mayors of Vancouver
- Vancouver City Council
- Non-Partisan Association
- Coalition of Progressive Electors
[edit] External links
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