Vancouver Election Results 2005

Vancouver (Canada) has municipal elections every three years. These elections include mayor, ten city councilors (elected at-large), school board, and parks board.

Canadian municipal politics differ from the US notably in the proliferation of local parties that often lack direct ties to their provincial and national counterparts.

Thie time the rightwing NPA (badly named "Non Partisan Association") won a small majority. The previous election COPE (Coalition of Progressive Electors) won its biggest
majority in a long time. After getting in power, COPE had a
left/right split with the larger right (which included the mayor)
creating a new party called Vision Vancouver. Interestingly Vision didn't field
anyone for parks board or school board, COPE didn't run anyone for
mayor, and there was probably some kind of informal or formal deal
because the entire left ran 11 people for the 10 city council slots
(5 Vision, 5 COPE, 1 Green).

The mayor got elected by a narrow margin, equal to the number of
votes a "same name" canidate got (James Green who came in third place
and probably took votes from Jim Green). Even though it was the right-wing break-off that ran Jim Green, he still reads like he pretty progressive - as he comes from an activist background (moved to Canada to avoid the Vietnam Draft, worked in the downtown east-side).

The one elected Green party member on parks board lost her seat. Note: the Greens are stronger in Vancouver than almost any other major city in the US or Canada (except for the recent strong showing of the Greens mayor canidate in San Francisco), though not strong enough to elect a city councillor. A long time ago (late 80s / very early 90s), Paul Watson, eco-terrorist/founder of the Shepherd Society, actually placed 13th running for city council - I think running as a Green.

City politics are pretty strange in Canada. Burnaby apparently has
its own homegrown parties too.

The map is interesting - shows the East/West divide of the city.
http://vancouver.ca/electionresults2005_wa/eresults2005.cfm

Because Vancouver uses the at-large system for voting, the rich parts of the city turn out at a higher rate (as much as twice!) and the right (addmittedly a moderate right) has managed to win the majority of the elections. If Vancouver had a ward/district system, the left would have won the majority of the recent elections. Voters have cast a Yes vote in favour of switching the electoral system, however not the required 60% to ammend the city charter.

Other interesting note, weird parties and joke canidates generally do very well. Vancouver used to have very easy requirements for getting on the ballot (50 signatures to run as mayor), though they may have tightened them. A Nude Garden Party canidate for council did pretty well - 6000 votes!

I wrote a research paper on COPE in high school.