Labour largely turns its back on Vancouver COPE slate
The Vancouver and District Labour Council has endorsed every Vision Vancouver candidate for council, school and park board, including Mayor Gregor Robertson

VANCOUVER — After nearly a half-century of endorsing left-leaning candidates for municipal elections, the Vancouver and District Labour Council has largely turned its back on the Coalition of Progressive Electors.

Instead, it has endorsed every Vision Vancouver candidate for council, school and park board, including Mayor Gregor Robertson.

The split comes after a fractured and disorganized COPE executive last year decided not to run a combined slate with Vision, as it had done in the past two elections. The council's endorsement, which it has given since at least 1968, is seen by area unions as a litmus test (试金石) for financially supporting candidates.

Joey Hartman, the president of the labour council, said the organization made the decision to support individual candidates, rather than parties, after COPE announced it would run a mayoral candidate and not share a slate with Vision.

She said the council's endorsement of all Vision candidates was a signal that it believes the more-centrist party reflects the values of organized labour. "Vision has managed to work in a way that supports a strong public service in a respectful labour relations climate," she said.

The council did agree to endorse two COPE candidates, Anita Romaniuk for park board, and Gayle Gavin for council, along with RJ Aquino of OneCity for council and Jane Bouey and Gwen Giesbrecht of Public Education Project for school board.

Bouey is a former COPE school trustee. Aquino is a former COPE board member who formed OneCity after longtime activist and former councillor Tim Louis engineered a takeover of COPE. Louis, whose outspoken views while a member of COPE'S only elected city council in 2002 led to the party's fracture and the birth of Vision, had stridently opposed a combined slate agreement with Vision.

Hartman did not refer specifically to Louis, who is running for re-election, but she said the council had "some hard choices" to make and did not feel COPE's candidates were as good as Vision's. She said the council saw in Robertson an effective mayoral candidate.

Meena Wong, COPE'S mayoral candidate, said she was shocked and disappointed by the loss of the labour council's endorsement. COPE and the council had long been on the same page about representing organized labour, she said.

The decision is passing strange, she said, given that Robertson's party has a deep and growing relationship with developers.

"I actively question the labour bosses on how they could not support a party that has represented workers for as long as it has been in existence," she said. "Vision is in the pocket of developers."

Wong said she hopes unions will financially support COPE despite the lack of a council endorsement. "We are the people's party," she said.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Labour+largely+turns+back+Vancouver+COP...

市选将至，但过去数十年一直支持温市左派政党进步选民联盟（COPE）的工会组织，却为所有伟景温哥华（Vision Vancouver）候选人背书，工会表示，此次市选他们不再为某个政党背书，而是针对个别候选人背书。

市选(municipal elections)将在今年11月15日举行，温哥华区劳工理事会（Vancouver and District Labour Council）今年支持所有伟景提名的市议员、学务委员及公园局委员候选人，当然也包括市长罗品信。

劳工理事会主席哈特蔓（Joey Hartman）表示，当COPE决定自行推出市长候选人，且不与伟景共同提名后，他们决定支持个别候选人，而不是为某个政党背书。

她说，相信伟景这个立场较为中间的政党更能反映劳工理事会的价值，因为伟景已勉力达成在尊重劳工关系的氛围下，支持强大的公共服务。

除全体伟景候选人外，理事会也为COPE提名的两位候选人背书(endorsement)，他们分别是公园局委员候选人罗蔓纽（Anita Romaniuk）与市议员候选人贾文（Gayle Gavin）；此外还有OneCity提名的阿奎诺（RJ Aquino）以及「公共教育方案」（Public Education Project）提名的学务委员候选人鲍伊（Jane Bouey）与吉丝布雷琦（Gwen Giesbrecht）。

COPE市长提名人王璐对劳工理事会不再为该党背书表示震惊与失望，她说这个决定很奇怪，因为罗品信所领导的政党与开发商的关系愈来愈紧密。

尽管失去背书，但她仍希望工会组织能在财务方面提供COPE援助，因为他们是代表人民的政党。

Vancouver and District Labour Council snubs most of COPE’s candidates
Unions back Vision Vancouver, Public Education Project, and OneCity politicians

The influential Vancouver and District Labour Council has included OneCity’s Rafael “RJ” Aquino in its list of recommended candidates for council in the November 15 municipal election.

In addition to Aquino, the VDLC picked all eight candidates of the ruling Vision Vancouver party, and only one from the Coalition of Progressive Electors, a party that the labour council founded in 1968.

“We’re very happy,” OneCity’s David Chudnovsky told the Straight in a phone interview today (September 18).

“Not that we’re surprised,” continued Chudnovsky, who, together with Aquino, broke away from COPE last year. “But we’re very happy that the [VDLC] delegates chose to endorse RJ. We think that’s a logical move.”

According to the former Vancouver-Kensington NDP MLA, his party, which launched only last spring, sees the labour movement as its “allies and friends”.

Chudnovsky also said that OneCity will not run any other candidate for council, park board, and school board.

Anyone who asks Chudnovsky for a suggestion on who to vote for mayor isn’t going to get one. As far as the VDLC is concerned, incumbent Vision mayor Gregor Robertson is the name to check off on the ballot.

Chudnovsky said: “My answer would be, ‘I’m focused on the council campaign of RJ Aquino, and building a credible, progressive voice in the city.’”

Gayle Gavin is the only COPE candidate for council that VDLC endorsed.

For park board, the VDLC is recommending the entire Vision slate plus COPE’s Anita Romaniuk.

No COPE candidate for school board made it on the VDLC’s list. For school board, the labour council chose the Vision team, plus Jane Bouey and Gwen Giesbrecht of the Public Education Project, a new party.

Chudnovsky, a former president of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, declined to give an opinion regarding VDLC’s decision not to support most of COPE’s candidates.

Before leaving COPE, Chudnovsky and Aquino were on the party’s executive. During their time in the party, they were principal supporters of electoral cooperation between COPE and Vision.

The Straight asked VDLC president Joey Hartman how she would respond to questions on why it essentially abandoned COPE, the party it created decades ago.

“We made a decision in consultation with the affiliated unions of the labour council to select, and put forward the names of the strongest group of people we felt was able to effectively run the City of Vancouver and the school board and park board,” Hartman said by phone today.

“Since Vision took over in Vancouver from the NPA [Non-Partisan Association], we’ve found that there has been a remarkable difference in terms of the way that labour relations are conducted as well as an agenda of strong public services,” Hartman continued.

There is a sense, according to Hartman, that the candidates endorsed by the VDLC “make up a strong group who are going to continue on that agenda”.