Party Challenges Candidates to Rescind Top-Down Provincial Housing Bills, Keep the Elected Park Board and Ensure Local Transparency and Integrity
VANCOUVER (Oct. 1, 2024) -- Vancouver is facing a democracy crisis, and TEAM for a Livable Vancouver is calling on provincial election candidates to commit to fixing it.
Top-down, centralized decision-making influenced by special-interest stakeholders – often development industry insiders or advocates – has replaced the concept of politicians representing the interests of the citizens who elect them.
This is happening at both the civic and provincial levels. Since the Oct. 19 election is an opportunity for provincial candidates to improve democracy at the local level, TEAM is urging them to commit to:
Rescinding housing bills 44, 46, 47 and 18, through which the NDP government took control of zoning from municipalities, imposed massive new densities on cities province-wide, and banned public hearings on most new developments. With no opposition from Vancouver MLAs, these bills were passed by the NDP in a blatantly undemocratic power grab.
Refusing Vancouver City Council’s request to eliminate the elected Vancouver Park Board. NDP Premier David Eby has said he will grant the request if the NDP forms government.
Agreeing to electoral change in the city of Vancouver if residents want that to happen. TEAM is opening a discussion about whether Vancouver should continue as the only major city in Canada with an at-large system, or whether residents would get better representation with a full or hybrid ward system, or a system of neighbourhood councils.
Requiring municipalities to have lobbyists’ registries to increase transparency about the pressures on city councils to approve developments. ABC Mayor Ken Sim promised a registry in his 2022 election campaign – but he hasn’t done anything.
Ensuring integrity at the municipal council level, whether through effective codes of conduct or Integrity Commissioners. There should be mechanisms to avoid scenarios like ABC’s recent effort to freeze the work of Vancouver’s Integrity Commissioner.
Strengthen rules and enforcement around local election campaign financing. Two years after the 2022 civic election, four parties -- including ABC – remain under investigation with no resolution in sight.
As a civic party that believes people should have a say in what happens in their city, TEAM has repeatedly sounded the alarm about how both civic and provincial governments are systematically cutting residents out of the picture.
During the 2022 civic election campaign, one of the most frequent comments TEAM mayoral candidate Colleen Hardwick heard was that there was no point in voting because experience has taught people to believe their votes didn’t matter. No wonder only a third of eligible voters in Vancouver bothered to cast a ballot.
Since then, civic and provincial dismissal of Vancouverites’ voices has only worsened. Vancouver’s ABC-majority council has taken various steps to reduce citizen input: cutting speakers’ time at meetings; replacing public meetings with online information boards and surveys; rushing major changes such as the gutting of view cones through Council with only a week’s notice. Meanwhile, the NDP government doubled down with last fall’s housing bills, which effectively prevent citizens and their local representatives from having any say regarding development and density in their communities.
TEAM believes it’s time to change all that. This provincial election is a good place to start. Those running for provincial office need to make it clear now where they stand on restoring democracy.
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