The big loser in Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»on Saturday night was COPE. The venerable party of the left all but got wiped off the map. It didnt help that they chucked their most popular candidate, David Cadman, in an early nomination battle. With most of the polls reporting they were reduced to one seat, and that was Allan Wong holding on at the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»School Board.
Gregor Robertson and Vision Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»managed to win the majority on all of city council, school board and park board. But before looking at what that means, you have to hand it to NPA mayoral candidate Suzanne Anton. Nobody expected her to win, but the campaign she ran managed to breathe a fair amount of life back into the NPA. They will have two seats on council and as many on school board and two on park board. That will be enough to have a more effective opposition. And it will be interesting to see how Al De Genovas kid Melissa performs on the park board.
Anton also managed to set the agenda for most of the campaign, turning her attacks on Robertson and his leadership abilities into daily headlines as the media joined her in first questioning Robertsons handling of the Stanley Cup riot and then, in the last few weeks of the campaign, the Occupy Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»issue on the lawn of the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Art Gallery.
Those issues may not have been top of mind for the voters, but Antons persistence managed to smother much of Robertsons platform and keep his party nervous. She also managed to keep her team together in spite of differences on issues, including gambling and development densities. And while she trailed Robertson, the spread was no less than what we saw in his 2008 battle against Peter Ladner.
That said, Visionnow without COPEholds the majority right across the board. Anton and the NPA may have wanted to take back the city. That didnt happen. And for the first time in decades what was once the natural governing party of the city has been kept from power for more than one term.
It reflects a shift in the way this city views itself. The green agenda advanced by Robertson et al may have been a point of ridicule for his opponentshow could we forget those backyard chickens and frontyard wheat fieldsbut clearly it is an agenda endorsed by a clear majority of Vancouverites.
Expect to see Robertson and the Vision council continue to push their policies on ending street homelessness, promoting the arts, working on housing affordability, and yes, bike lanes. There will be more. They will also lobby for more transit, particularly a new Broadway line out to UBC. Any new gambling casinos will have to look elsewhere for a home.
And city manager Penny Ballem can rest easy. She would have been gone with an NPA victory.
It also appears there was more to Robersons coattails than earlier thought. While his guys may have been rattled by the NPA poll that put Anton six points behind him in the last week, their advertising campaign reflected a fair amount of confidence all the Vision incumbents would make it across the line. A high percentage of the television and print ads featured Robertson and the one rookie on his council team Tony Tang. And it worked.
Once again we have seen an at-large system at work where independents dont stand a chance. The most popular of the lot, anti-casino campaigner Sandy Garossino came in well down the list.
The one long shot that made it was the Green Partys Adriane Carr. Nothing like name recognition and the likelihood many Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»voters figured there was still a deal between Vision and the Greens.
Incidentally, the one Green incumbent, park commissioner Stuart Mackinnon, lost his seat.
While the final numbers arent in, there was another positive piece to Robertsons win: the popular vote appears to have gone up to more than 35 per cent after years of trending downward.
