Long-time Member of Parliament (1997-2015) and well-known Vancouver politician Libby Davies has endorsed fellow NDP member Kennedy Stewart in his bid for the Vancouver mayor’s job in the October 2018 civic election.
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Her framing of the contest is revealing, coming as it does from a seasoned civic and federal politician.
She lumps together Ken (Quiet Guy) Sim, Hector (Oh Yes) Bremner and Wai (I hate bike lanes) Young as “backwards-looking NPA”. She seems to predict a clump of vote-splitting voices on the right side of voter’s choices.
But then — Kennedy Stewart, she says, is a candidate of “. . . progressive policies”.
Oddly, there’s no mention of rival progressives — like Ian Campbell, Shauna Sylvester, Patrick Condon. Imagine that.
Until we hear more about policies and issues, it remains to be seen if these clumps on the left and right will irretrievably coalesce in voter’s minds, or whether someone can find a comfortable and vote-rich middle ground.
With thanks to Dan Fumano(@fumano)
Not a fan of cross-jurisdiction carpet-bagging. Reminds me a bit of Bill VanderZalm against Mike Harcourt in the ‘80s. And we know how that turned out. Why not run in Burnaby? Oh, right, Derek Corrigan isn’t going anywhere.
Maybe because he lives in Vancouver?
I agree with Frank that Kennedy Stewart looks opportunistic here, notwithstanding his newfound interest in our city. Firstly, he is supposedly vacating his federal seat in what looks like shaky by-election chances for the party leader. Stewart always has his university post to go back to so losing will be no big whoop.
What should leave Vancouver voters cold, however, is Stewart’s silence in the face of the devastating Corrigan/Burnaby council led demolition of much of the city’s stock of low income housing in his riding and the lack of action on how to accommodate the seniors and immigrant families kicked to the street.
It is so-called “progressives” who have wreaked this devastation on so many families, and continue to do so. I know that we’ve had almost a decade of Gregor Robertson, but I do not think that Vancouver voters are so jaded that they will rally behind a mayor who turned his back on the region’s most vulnerable. Not even the presumed endorsement by the Vancouver District Labour Council can boost his chances.
Libby’s endorsement looks downright cynical.