A Good COPE-Vision Agreement

The COPE Vision Agreement is being voted on by COPE members this Sunday (June 26) at the Japanese Hall  487 Alexander Street. Registration starts at 2:00pm, and the meeting is scheduled to start at 3:00. There has also been a lot of membership renewals and sign-ups recently and we can expect more right up to the meeting, which I think is great.BTW – to renew membership, or Join  COPE go to >http://cope.bc.ca/get-involved/become-a-member. From comments in the media and on the web, there is clearly strong support for and opposition to the agreement, both within and outside of the COPE membership. This is also true within my circle of friends.  I am hopeful that the debates on Sunday will be as respectful as the ones I have had, and am having with friends, who are quick to point to Vision decisions at Council that they know I disagree with. I might even have been persuaded to change my position on the agreement between COPE and Vision if it only dealt with City council, and if I thought COPE had the resources (financial and otherwise) to field a Mayor and full slate for Council, and didn’t care about School Board, and Park Board.  Of course I would also have to forget or ignore everything I have learned about civic politics and elections over the past 30 years. This includes the fact that plumping (voting for fewer candidates than number of positions to be filled) is allowed in civic elections. This means that the party who runs a full slate or more candidates that other parties usually ends up electing fewer Candidates. An example of this is the last civic elections where COPE ran five Candidates for school Board and three were elected, while Vision ran four and all four were elected.  At Council, the NPA ran a full slate and COPE ran two Candidates, who were both elected, while the NPA elected only one. I consider Civic Election campaigns more complex and challenging than electoral campaigns for other levels of government. And Vancouver because of its size, diversity, number of positions to be elected, and political culture is in my view the most complex of all. That is why the COPE election Planning committee has been meeting for months, reviewing campaigns and analyzing results from previous elections, and working on developing an election campaign plan that will enable us to increase the number of COPE representatives on Council, School Board and Park Board.The proposed Agreement with Vision is a critical and strategic  part of that planning. This agreement  not only enhances our ability to grow our number of elected representative, it also provides ways and means to increase our effectiveness in advancing and achieving progressive policies at all levels. That is why I am  going to vote in favor of the Agreement and urge other members to vote yes as well.