Monday, October 15, 2007

Pre-Election Posturing

The gloves are off and the Vancouver civic election campaign is underway. Only 13 months to go.

The defining issue - which side of the strike you are on.

NPA will claim that Vision and COPE would have settled the strike earlier because they would have given everything away.

COPE and Vision will argue bad faith bargaining on the part of the NPA council. They will point to Mayor Sullivan and Elizabeth Ball as the key culprits.

Finally, after listening to Mayor Sullivan on the Bill Good show it would appear the only person impacted by the strike was him. His agenda was set back etc.

If anyone was hoping for peace, reconciliation or the end to civic silly season it appears that acrimony, blame and mud slinging still rule the day.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Homelessness, and the lack of will to deal effectively with it - to live up to promises that brought us the Olympic Games - is the defining issue of the election campaign.

No one has died as a result of the strike. People die in Vancouver because they are homeless.

No one from the United Nations came down to inspect the negotiations, as envoy Miloon Kothari will do in the Downtown Eastside tomorrow.

World's greatest city, my ass.

Let's all stop navel gazing and start showing the least fortunate among us that we give a damn.

Let's start building some homes people.

Anonymous said...

That's rhetorical posturing on your part, right? The hoping for peace and goodwill thing? 'Cause I have to say, I've seen these people in action, and I can't see it coming this millenium. [insert conspiratorial grin here]

In the meantime, there is no peace in any case, because the City is still doing the library staff over. Shame on the City, which has got its priorities completely backwards. Me, I'll take libraries over garbage pickup any day. Give those women full-time jobs, and pay them at least as much as someone who picks up the garbage!

Anonymous said...

mayor Sullivan is a legend in his own mind. The strike was allll about getting rid of him. Contracting out was never an issue but wait a minute...now...."maybe contracting out is worth looking into." Mayor Sullivan sees himself as a man of character for not giving into those big bad unions. I guess Vancouver's neighbouring municipalities all have wimps for mayors since they used collective bargaining to attain fair contracts with their big bad unions...those cowards!

Anonymous said...

People think Sullivan forced the unions on strike on purpose. Sullivan wanted a strike. He can see the forces of Vision Vancouver circling and gaining momentum. A municipal CUPE strike that leaves your garbage rotting in your backyard always brings out the anti-labor sentiments in the moderates. Sullivan will use this sentiment against Vision Vancouver and COPE. Sullivan is looking to score all the points he can. He is almost 2/3 through his term and has yet to get past first base. He is getting desperate.

Anonymous said...

did you see where Peter Ladner is suggesting making garbage an essential service... he knows contracting out isn't cheaper or better