John Coupar, Ken Sim and Glen Chernen compete in NPA鈥檚 leadership race at Hellenic community centre
So who鈥檚 it going to be?
It鈥檚 a question that will have an answer sometime Sunday night after Non-Partisan Association members choose which of their three mayoral nominees is best to lead the party into the Oct. 20 municipal election.
John Coupar, Ken Sim and Glen Chernen are the candidates.
Each is driven to make 麻豆传媒映画affordable, bring transparency to the workings of city hall and strengthen the economy鈥攑opular platitudes this election season among many candidates across the political spectrum as campaigns launch and policy discussions emerge.
John Coupar, Ken Sim and Glen Chernen are vying to become the Non-Partisan Association鈥檚 mayoral candidate. The contest goes this Sunday. Photo Dan Toulgoet
So what separates these three guys from each other?
First, their backgrounds: Coupar, 61, lives in the Olympic Village and is a two-term park board commissioner and president of Novex Delivery Systems; Sim, 47, lives in Arbutus Ridge and is the co-founder of a seniors' home care service and bagel business; and Chernen, who graduated from Churchill Secondary with Sim, lives in Dunbar and is a self-employed manager of his investments.
Coupar鈥檚 political roots are in his efforts to save the Bloedel Conservatory from destruction, which he parlayed into a successful park board run in 2011. He believes his local government experience, business background, support of many of his NPA caucus colleagues, including Coun. George Affleck, and an endorsement from former mayor Philip Owen give him an edge in the race.
Sim described himself as 鈥渁 change agent鈥� and said people are looking for someone who knows how to operate a complex organization鈥攕omething he鈥檚 done, he said, in co-founding Nurse Next Door, which has 180 locations in North America with more than 5,000 employees.
Former NPA president Peter Armstrong is backing Sim.
Chernen has been viewed by some as a disrupter in this race, having faced accusations that he had something to do with NPA Coun. Hector Bremner not getting the nod from the party鈥檚 board to become a mayoral nominee.
Chernen has denied all claims while Bremner is planning to create a new party.
Chernen became familiar to voters in the 2014 election when he and his brother founded the 鈥渘on-developer funded鈥� Cedar Party. He ran unsuccessfully for city council but continued a litigious campaign aimed at discrediting Mayor Gregor Robertson, making conflict-of-interest claims and questioning city land deals.
None of his legal action was successful.
Common ground
Common ground among the three candidates is evident in information posted on their campaign websites, with Coupar and Sim calling for a review of the city's finances. Coupar said once the city's "financial house is in order," he would link the maximum annual allowable property tax increase to match the rate of inflation.
Sim, who has worked as a banker, said he would use his chartered professional accountant expertise to "separate waste from opportunity." He has promised to be "the most business friendly mayor in the history of Vancouver."
Chernen said he will focus on "reducing bloated expenditures and other losses, which lead to lower mill rates, and lower property taxes for you." All have said taxes have gone up too much under the Vision 麻豆传媒映画administration.
Chernen and Coupar both questioned the size of the city's communications department, with Chernen saying it would be "faced with significant budget cutbacks without the public suffering any meaningful loss of 'communication.'"
On housing, Coupar and Sim promise to break what Sim referred to as "a building permit logjam" at city hall to speed up the supply of new homes in Vancouver. Sim said his single biggest priority is "attainable housing for Vancouverites to rent and buy" and he wants "creative zoning bylaws [to] give our children better opportunities to live close to home."
鈥楽afety deposit boxes in the sky鈥�
Under a Chernen government, the city will "finally place the housing needs of locals before encouraging safety deposit boxes in the sky." He promised "proper neighbourhood consultation" for proposed development or infrastructure.
Chernen is the only one of the three candidates who said he will fight to keep the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts from being demolished. Coupar said it's too late to reverse council's decision on the viaducts because "real estate deals are already in play and will be completed by this summer."
On transportation, Coupar wants the city to stop building separated bike lanes. He supports allowing Uber and other ride-hailing services to operate in the city, saying there is "no reason why we cannot do this in 麻豆传媒映画immediately."
Though the information on their websites is directed at NPA members, one of these men could very well become Vancouver鈥檚 next mayor. But neither Coupar nor Sim was willing to take a position on the Alberta-to-Burnaby pipeline project the federal government purchased this week from Kinder Morgan.
The Courier left phone and email messages for Chernen Thursday and Friday but had not heard back before the posting of this story.
Pipeline position
The addition of the pipeline--which Mayor Gregor Robertson and the city鈥檚 legal department have battled to stop--will almost triple the number of barrels of oil shipped per day in an existing pipeline from 300,000 to 890,000. That volume would translate to a seven-fold increase in tanker traffic in and around 麻豆传媒映画waters.
Coupar, a boater, declined to take a public position on whether he supported the project. But he did say transporting oil by train down the Fraser Canyon is more dangerous than pumping it through a pipeline.
鈥淚 feel that civic government is more and more stretching into areas that are not their jurisdiction,鈥� he told the Courier. 鈥淚 think that鈥檚 problematic, actually, and it takes people鈥檚 eyes off what the mayor really should be dealing with.鈥�
Sim said he would be concerned 鈥渨ith anything that could adversely affect our environment.鈥� But, he said, the city doesn鈥檛 have control over whether the pipeline will be built.
鈥淚f the pipeline actually is ever built, as mayor of 麻豆传媒映画I would make sure that all our environmental standards were set as high as possible, and I would do everything in my power and the city鈥檚 power to make sure those standards are met and enforced,鈥� Sim said.
This Sunday鈥檚 nomination meeting is being held at the Hellenic community centre at 4500 Arbutus St. Speeches by the candidates are scheduled to kick off at 6 p.m. and voting ends at 8 p.m. A winner is expected to be announced before 10 p.m.
