For the first time since the 1980s, outspoken left-wing politician Tim Louis will not run for civic office with the Coalition of Progressive Electors.
The left-of-centre party voted not to nominate the former park board commissioner and city councillor as part of its constrained two-person slate in this November’s civic elections.
Louis had been seeking a spot as a city councillor, a position he had held at the city since 1999 before being knocked off in 2005.
Instead COPE members voted to nominate incumbent councillor David Cadman and former councillor Ellen Woodsworth.
Louis was eliminated by a mere six votes in the third vote held Sunday afternoon at the Ukrainian church. But Louis said he had no hard feelings after the defeat.
"These things happen," he told reporters.
Sunday's vote pitted two branches of the left wing party against each other. Woodsworth had been instrumental in helping to broker an alliance between COPE and Vancouver’s other major left-of-centre party, Vision Vancouver. But Louis had fought tooth and nail against the alliance, which gave his storied COPE party only two of eight spots on council.
Asked what the razor-thin decision between two differing factions of COPE implied, Cadman said it only shows both Louis and Woodsworth had popular support.
"What it shows is, in COPE, there's democracy," Cadman said, contrasting the result with that of the ruling centre-right Non-Partisan Association, which vetted its council slate with no membership vote.
COPE’s park board slate has been acclaimed: incumbent Loretta Woodcock and former parks commissioner Anita Romaniuk.
Its members also voted in five for the school board slate: Jane Bouey, Al Blakey, Alvin Singh, Allan Wong and Bill Bargeman.
Also at Sunday’s meeting, leaders of the left-of-centre electoral organization promised that the party would retire its 2002 debt before the November elections.
"The debt - the entire debt - will be paid off before the next election," said labour leader Bill Saunders, president of the Vancouver & District Labour Council. "We will ensure that COPE and Vision take responsibility with ... amounts that are equitable."
But that still leaves much to be determined. Neither COPE nor Vision has agreed to anything except to sit down and hash out a deal with CUPE, the union that undersigned the debt, COPE organizer Ivan Bulic said.
"Vision may have a different number than we have," said Bulic, who wouldn't confirm exactly how big the debt is.
And while the debt may soon be a thing of the past, November's pending civic election means COPE is still in need of cash.
"We don't have the resources that we need to fight this campaign," Cadman told members in a plea for donations as COPE members David Chudnovsky and Terry Martin circled the room with donation boxes.
"We need those resources."
Vision and the ruling centre-right Non-Partisan Association, Cadman said, will raise $2 million each.
"So whatever you were thinking of giving," Cadman said, "add a zero."
Civic elections in B.C. are Nov. 15.
