When Carole Taylor definitively ruled out politics for the rest of her life last week, she did more than bring a tear to the eyes of B.C. Liberals who were hoping for CPR from a guardian angel for their struggling party.
The former finance minister also dealt the final blow to many in Vancouver’s longstanding centre-right civic party who had the same fantasy.
The leaders at the Non-Partisan Association, Vancouver’s natural ruling party for decades before two serious defeats in the past eight years, are also flailing as they try to find a leader willing to help them rebuild their fortunes and take on the telegenic and eco-friendly Vision Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson in next year’s civic election.
So far, they have a long list of people who have been rumoured as possible candidates for the job but who say they don’t want it.
And they also have another list of qualities they don’t want in their mayoral candidate – like celebrity parachute candidates or populist cranks who will do nothing but campaign against bike lanes and taxes.
“We don’t have a track record of [picking celebrity candidates],” says NPA president John Moonen. “If there’s any theme, we seem to have been picking people with council experience. If not that, it was people who have contributed to the community. It’s very difficult to come in from the outside.”
That stance has been at the core of the NPA’s philosophy that the association isn’t a party, it’s a collection of civic-minded people who pick well-qualified candidates.
But it’s at odds with the kind of civic-election dynamics that have played out in Vancouver in the last few elections and in city elections across Canada the last two weeks.
Locally, victory has gone to outsiders like former coroner Larry Campbell and organic juice producer/NDP MLA Gregor Robertson – the first mayors Vancouver had who came in with no council experience at all.
In Calgary last week, business consultant and professor Naheed Nenshi won out over experienced councillors. In Toronto, the race Monday was between a former provincial cabinet minister, George Smitherman, and a suburban councillor, Rob Ford, whose campaign framed him as an outsider coming to clean up city hall.
Michael Geller, a development consultant who is one of the long list of people saying they won’t run for the NPA in spite of rumours to the contrary, says he hopes his party doesn’t choose a candidate like Mr. Ford.
“What I don’t want to see is Vancouver follow the lead of others who pick a candidate who can generate a great deal of populist support by railing against bike lanes or the Greenest City or the more sustainable directions this mayor has chosen,” Mr. Geller said.
Parks board commissioner Ian Robertson, another rumoured candidate, especially after a fiery speech at the NPA’s annual fundraising dinner last week, also said he hopes the party chooses people not just on the basis of star power.
“I think it needs to be someone who has a track record of building consensus,” said Mr. Robertson, while confirming that he does not plan to run because he has a job – director of sales for Rocky Mountaineer – that he loves and doesn’t plan to leave.
Jason McLean, a businessman and Vancouver Board of Trade chair whose family has long been associated with federal Liberals, is also on the list of those not running. Among the five reasons he listed, No. 1 is that he’s getting married this week and No. 5 is that he is an appointee to the Vancouver Police Board, which prohibits political activity.
But he wished the NPA well, saying the city needs people – especially business people – to be engaged in politics and public discourse.
Tung Chan, the former NPA councillor who has been talked about the most by NPA commentators as a possible mayor candidate, also confirmed Monday that he won’t be running. The fact that he was lying in bed recovering from brain surgery for a stroke was not the deciding factor, Mr. Chan said, laughing.
He just feels it’s not the right thing for him to do.
That leaves the party with limited options.
One is two-term councillor Suzanne Anton, who will not definitively say whether she’s planning to run.
Another could be one of the more civic-minded developers in town, who might have the deep pockets to pay for a campaign.
And a third possibility could include provincial politicians who decide to bail early on what could be a B.C. Liberal rout in 2013. Several mayoral candidates in Canada this fall were politicians who decided to move down a level.
Special to The Globe and Mail
