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This post is for Vancouverites who are either new to the city, or who are urban or civic politics nerds but aren’t acquainted with the early historical roots of the local civic political party that is known—somewhat hilariously—as the Non Partisan Association (NPA). In power for many years, the centre-right NPA was recently all-but eliminated by a new party called Vision Vancouver, which looks like a progressive alternative to the NPA but which is in fact a greenwashed NPA clone, and equally if not more developer-funded.
Lately the NPA seems to be attempting a zombie return from the dead, so a review of its history seems useful. Since I am related to one of the NPA’s founders, I’m hoping this info can somehow be used to right a civic and family wrong: its removal from power of the CCF, the left wing party that the NPA was organized to fight.
Some excerpts from the 1967 Vancouver Sun article above (read it here (jpg)]:
“It was the success of the CCF or Co-operative Commonwealth Federation—now NDP [now civic party COPE]—at the local level in the civic elections of 1936 which was a second major factor in the organization of the NPA [the first was the move from a ward system to an at-large system in 1936]… [I]ts purpose was to keep CCF-socialist politics out [of city hall]… Unquestionably the NPA has been the “party” of the west side of the city, and has helped to maintain the split of east-side west-side which has been of fundamental importance in the politics of Vancouver for nearly 50 years. Because NPA candidates have dominated the civic boards for 30 years, west-side interests have made policy for the city for 30 years…. It was the fear of the policies and legislation which east side, “socialistic” representatives would bring to city council and civic boards, and of more importance the concern with the political power which civic office would bring them, which prompted the organization of the NPA…”
… & so on. It’s fascinating reading, revealing a party that is the furthest thing from non-partisan. Even when it pulls in candidates from across the city, it represents a particular establishment and political stripe.
By raising this party’s past I am not suggesting that a political party cannot drift from its original purpose. I’m suggesting that this one hasn’t. I would also say that it is usually difficult for an institution to alter its very DNA, and when political DNA does change, historically it has been infinitely more common to see a drift from left to right (via a co-optation by business interests) than to see a drift in the other direction. Certainly it seems very unlikely that a party this genetically close to west side and business establishment interests will be truly interested in, for example, the open government and “transparency” issue it has now mounted on its campaign like a parade float mascot.
While the NPA’s activities may have been more benign during certain periods—say, the administration of Mayor Philip Owen in the 1990s—it is worth taking a look at the most recent NPA regime of Mayor Sam Sullivan. Sullivan’s euphemistic “ecodensity” program turbo-charged the tower development bonanza that is laying waste to this city’s affordability and built heritage, and that Vision Vancouver has even further accelerated but just under a different name.
Which takes me to my next point, that the incumbent faux-green party Vision Vancouver is no alternative to the NPA. Vision Vancouver and the NPA have a great deal in common, not least their identical corporate real estate funders. While Vision is backed by an NDP element, its ties to the construction industry’s unions have only rendered it more friendly to rampant luxury developers and property speculators. This is all shorthand for a much more complicated situation that I’m not going to footnote or otherwise elaborate on here. Much ink has been spilled on this topic, and better ink than this.
Tactically speaking I believe the best we can hope for in the November 2014 civic election is a minority civic government. We then at least have a small chance of getting some traction. I will be supporting a number of candidates (TBA) including the three Green council candidates Adriane Carr, Pete Fry and Cleta Brown, and Keith Higgins and Gayle Gavin of COPE (with Meena Wong for Mayor). These parties do not take developer donations. In the second-most unaffordable city in the world relative to median income, a distinction Vancouver has won the past three years in a row, we need to try something else.
Vancouver did many things right in the 70s. Most of the things it is now rightly famous for were the work of more progressive administrations, not of the most recent developer-funded administrations. We need to return to a progressive civic politics. Bike lanes and faux-transparency do not a progressive housing agenda make.
The intention of this post, hastily written in the news doldrums of pre-election summertime, is merely to provide a little interesting reading on the topic of the NPA’s ancient history. Maybe this is also a bid for some consciousness of civic history in this famously amnesiac town.
Here is a link to a 5 MB jpg of the news story above. Feel free to download.
Alternatively take a look at this useful 1976 grad thesis on the origins of the NPA (PDF).