(The following article is from the October 1-15, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

By Kimball Cariou

After a year of difficult negotiations on electoral cooperation between Vision Vancouver and the Coalition of Progressive Electors, a tentative deal was overwhelmingly endorsed by COPE on September 15. Packed into a west side meeting hall on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, some 400 COPE members erupted in cheers when the vote was taken, emerging ready to challenge the right-wing Non-Partisan Alliance, which has controlled Vancouver City Hall for most of the past seventy years.

     Announcing the agreement on Sept. 8, the COPE and Vision Executives called it "an important step to create the kind of campaign that can return progressive government to city hall."

     The agreement, which also includes the Vancouver Civic Greens, includes joint support for Vision mayoralty candidate Gregor Robertson, co-founder of Happy Planet organic juices before he was elected the NDP MLA for Vancouver Fairview.

     Vision, which won four city council seats in the 2005 civic election to one for COPE, will nominate eight council candidates, leaving two COPE nominations. For school board, COPE will nominate five candidates to Vision's four. There will be four Vision candidates for Park Board, plus two for COPE and one Green.

     The agreement calls for Vision/COPE cooperation around specific policy issues, including a strategy on homelessness.

     "It is crucial that we work together to return progressive government to city hall, park and school board," said COPE Councillor David Cadman. "We want to work with Gregor Robertson and Vision to cooperate around areas of common concern. With this agreement we can avoid splitting the progressive vote and create a better Vancouver."

     The agreement does not erase all policy differences, nor does it mean a "merger" of the two groups. But it does reflect the wide understanding that the animosity which broke out several years ago during the breakaway from COPE by those who formed Vision has only benefitted the NPA. During nearly three years in opposition at City Hall, the Vision and COPE councillors have usually voted the same way, and members of both groups have worked closely together on school board issues.

     That understanding was first reflected in the spring of 2007, when a group of young civic activists launched a successful push to win a majority of pro-cooperation supporters to the COPE executive. Later that year, when NPA Mayor Sam Sullivan and his caucus angered city residents by refusing to settle a prolonged civic strike, public sentiment began to swing against the NPA. Vision has benefitted from this trend, growing to over ten thousand members to become the largest civic party in Canada.

     Reporting to the Sept. 14 meeting, COPE bargaining committee member David Ages said that Vision was initially reluctant to engage in serious talks. But that attitude changed over the summer of 2008 when it became clear that anti-NPA unity was vital to achieve victory in November. The Vancouver and District Labour Council, a founding member of COPE forty years ago, exerted pressure by calling on both groups to reach an agreement. Without cooperation, there would be little reason for the city's trade union movement to provide significant campaign support.

     Supporting an agreement which allows just two council candidates is difficult for many COPE members. But most agree that the deal provides the best conditions to elect COPE candidates and then to rebuild the organization over the next three years.

     Even so, debate was heated at the Sept. 14 meeting. Although the final count was about 90% in favour, an opposition group led by former city councillor Tim Louis tried repeatedly to block any membership vote on the deal. Using pseudo-legal arguments, bitter accusations, and long-winded "questions" and "points of order", this faction managed to reduce open debate to a minimum. But the tactic backfired badly, antagonizing COPE members who wanted to hear a full discussion and then to vote on the agreement. This episode, on top of Louis' divisive role in COPE over the past few years, have deepened the doubts about his council nomination bid.

     The agreement will certainly improve chances to win a third term for Cadman, and to elect an anti-NPA majority on Council.

     Just as important, it gives COPE and Vision high hopes to take the Vancouver school board, where the present NPA majority is now divided over policies and reeling from a scandal. It was recently revealed that the Liberal provincial government arbitrarily picked two schools in Premier Campbell's wealthy Vancouver constituency as "Neighbourhoods of Learning," eligible to receive enormous extra funding for seismic upgrading. There are wildly conflicting accounts of the role of some NPA trustees in this secretive process, which ignored the Board's established priorities, and parent and community groups are outraged by the smell of political favouritism.

     The Sept. 14 meeting also adopted a wide-ranging election platform, which will be on the COPE website, http://www.cope.bc.ca. The next step for COPE will be its formal nomination meeting, on Sept. 28, when the cooperation agreement will also be formally ratified.

     Vision held its own nominations on Sept. 20, with some 5,000 members casting ballots. All four Vision city council incumbents were nominated, along with former Green Party school trustee Andrea Reimer, Ross Street temple president Kashmir Dhaliwal, UBC academic Kerry Jang, and Geoff Meggs. Radical lawyer/housing advocate David Eby missed a council nomination by just 17 votes. The Vision school board slate includes highly respected public education defender Patti Bacchus, teacher activist Mike Lombardi, Aboriginal community leader Ken Clement, and incumbent Sharon Gregson.