People walk past a sign directing voters to a polling station in Vancouver, on Oct. 20, 2018. British Columbians are heading to the polls to cast their votes in municipal elections being held across the province.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
At 30 pages and with 94 different policy points on issues ranging from reconciliation to child care, the glossy platform booklet that mayoral candidate Ken Sim and his ABC party released last Thursday at the SFU theatre in the Woodward’s building downtown is not a quick read.
But that’s not unusual in this groundbreaking civic election in Vancouver, set for Oct. 15. All the parties have put exceptional effort into developing detailed outlines for their plans on Vancouver’s many complicated social and economic issues, especially the two big ones: housing, and the tangled bundle that includes public disorder, mental health, crime, homelessness and the toxic supply of illicit drugs.
“It’s kind of amazing to think, in 2022, everybody’s got a housing plan, everybody’s got a climate plan, everybody’s got an Indigenous reconciliation plan,” said Andrea Reimer, a city councillor during Vision Vancouver’s reign from 2008 to 2018. She now teaches politics at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University.
“In 2008, people kind of laughed at Vision Vancouver because it had a housing plan and a sustainability plan,” she added. “Now it’s a pitched battle over how far we can go.”
Political-science professor Stewart Prest agrees it is a definite change from past elections.
“The conversation is shifting. And it does seem like there’s a clustering around certain issues.”
By contrast, recent headlines in Surrey have been dominated by promises of massive infrastructure projects. A 60,000-seat sports stadium and a full-size swimming pool in Whalley from current Mayor Doug McCallum and his Safe Surrey Coalition. A 10,000-seat soccer stadium with a performing arts centre and entertainment district from Surrey Forward mayoral candidate Jinny Sims.
But the new level of detail – a level that Ms. Reimer says is a testament to policy developed through reaching out to community groups and experts instead of having goals dictated by fundraisers, campaigners and professional message-crafters – means it takes additional work to figure out the crucial differences in Vancouver’s race.
Many of the parties have such similar policies that they’re accusing each other of stealing ideas – an accusation Mr. Sim and ABC Vancouver have levelled several times at Mayor Kennedy Stewart.
As well, none of them explain how they would pay for them or whether the city has the power to do them, Ms. Reimer said.
“There’s a bunch that are feasible legally, but the price tag is not even hinted at. And some are not feasible. Plus, so many require multiple collaborations with many other municipalities, many ministries, the province and the federal governments.”
Given all that, here is a concise summary of what the parties are offering on the two top issues. (Five parties with mayoral candidates are running six or seven council candidates each. Five parties have no mayoral contender, and are running one to five council candidates apiece.)
Housing
Mr. Stewart and his Forward Together party have the most ambitious supply goal: 220,000 homes in 10 years, 140,000 of them rentals ranging from market to social housing. That would mean tripling the current production rate. Mr. Stewart says that would be achieved by carrying out the recently approved Vancouver Plan, going ahead with his idea of allowing sixplexes on any current detached-house lot, and speeding up approvals for new homes by prezoning, assigning dedicated staff teams for larger projects and improving the public-hearing process.
ABC and Mr. Sim have not set a target for new housing, but want to speed up the permit-approval system: three days for home renos, three weeks for single-family homes and townhouses, three months for professionally designed multifamily and mid-rise projects and one year (down from six) for large-scale projects. The party is also supporting the concept of ensuring that non-profits can make the first offer on any privately held apartment building that comes up for sale – an adaptation of the right-of-first-refusal concept introduced in Montreal recently.
TEAM for a Livable Vancouver is the party least enthusiastic about blanket promises of new supply, saying the current approach to development is problematic and hasn’t produced affordable housing. Mayoral candidate Colleen Hardwick has said the party would rescind the approvals for the Broadway Plan (slated to add 30,000 new homes along the Broadway corridor in the next 30 years) and the Vancouver Plan (slated to provide for 260,000 more residents overall in the next 30 years). Instead, the party would work to find room for new housing in a way that is tailored to individual neighbourhoods.
The Coalition of Progressive Electors is focused heavily on the concept of rent control as protection for tenants, along with support for much more government-subsidized housing. That means rents could not be raised by more than the provincially mandated amount, usually pegged to the rate of inflation, even when an apartment changes hands. Currently, landlords are restricted in rent increases for existing tenants, but can ask whatever price the market will bear when they move out.
Progress Vancouver, with mayoral candidate Mark Marissen, has set a target of 15,000 new homes a year, half of them rental. The party emphasizes that areas around schools and transit should be developed first.
OneCity Vancouver has not set targets, but has said its candidates would advocate for ending what it calls the “apartment ban,” allowing anything up to six stories anywhere in the city and higher for non-profit housing developers.
Vision Vancouver’s platform says it would rezone the whole city to allow low- and mid-rise apartment buildings everywhere, address permitting delays, end requirements for public hearings for non-market projects, and expand protection for renters.
The Green Party has a wide-ranging 12-point plan to create and preserve affordable housing, including support for a right-of-first-refusal for non-profits trying to buy private apartments that are being sold. It supports allowing clusters of tiny homes on empty lots, more direct city involvement in building housing, and stricter limits on rent increases.
The Non-Partisan Association has said more supply is crucial and the way to achieve it is to make it easier for private developers to build rental homes. That would be achieved by reducing permit times and changing other parts of the process to remove bottlenecks.
Public order, mental health, drug poisonings
These are separate issues, but they overlap at points in the public mind and several party platforms.
The NPA has the most aggressive law-and-order approach. Mayoral candidate Fred Harding has said his party would clear the tents on Hastings Street by Christmas. The NPA supports more resources for police, as well as more focus on prevention and treatment programs for users of illicit drugs, not just harm-reduction programs.
TEAM is next on the scale of most pro-police, less focus on harm reduction. Ms. Hardwick has said at points that Vancouver provides too much for homeless people, which attracts them to the city. The party platform includes a promise to “audit” the Downtown Eastside to compare needs and resources and to create a full-time DTES commission to address the “out-of-control social issues that are impacting the health and safety of the community.”
ABC and Mr. Sim have made the bold promise to hire 100 new police officers who would work with 100 psychiatric nurses for an expanded version of Vancouver’s Car 87, which sends such teams out to mental-health calls. Mr. Sim has said streets can’t be cleared instantly and the platform generally takes a softer approach than the NPA or TEAM. The platform statement on drug poisoning says it will support all health authority initiatives “that enhance the safety of the drug supply,” but doesn’t directly endorse the idea of safe supply.
Mr. Stewart and Forward Together have proposed a specially trained health and addictions response team to “compassionately assist those in difficulty.” As well, it would “transform Hastings Street into a wellness corridor with new Indigenous-focused facilities, support services and a park,” and expand access to a safe drug supply and peer-led compassion clubs.
In general, OneCity, Vision, the Green Party, Progress Vancouver, VOTE Socialist and COPE support less policing and more social services to address the city’s current issues in varying degrees. They in general call for ensuring a better supply of safe drugs to reduce the current record-high death rate from drug poisoning, as well as more services of all kinds for people on the street or drug users.
The Green Party platform, while endorsing supervised consumption sites, focuses a little more on ensuring that services do not have a negative effect on communities and that there are agreements with operators about sanitation.
Vision’s platform proposes to support neighbourhoods with needle cleanups and other community safety initiatives.
COPE and Progress Vancouver both want the city to find some kind of space – a side street or parking lot – where people who are tenting can live temporarily while permanent housing is built. That sanctioned camp would have services from bathrooms and water to overdose prevention and cultural programming. Progress Vancouver also has a detailed outline of other measures to ensure a safe supply of drugs and more access to treatment.
OneCity has proposed a “peer-assisted care team” that would send one mental-health professional and a person who has experienced mental-health issues out to any crisis. (That’s a contrast to ABC’s police/nurse teams.) They advocate for a non-prescription method for people to obtain safe drugs. And, in a move sure to be noticed by police, they say there should be “greater municipal control and democratic oversight over the [Vancouver Police Department’s] annual budget and training related to equity, diversity and inclusion.”