The center-right candidate, Sam Sullivan, has been elected mayor of Vancouver over lefty Jim Green. As a Vancouver-watcher and fairly frequent visitor, I'm pleased that the crime- and drug-plagued city will have more sober leadership than in the last four years under bleeding-edge liberal Larry Campbell. Before election day, Saturday Nov. 19, I wrote here about the race, and much that has afflicted the city.

More from Macleans, in this post-election piece:

Sam Sullivan of the Non-Partisan Association defeated long-time city social activist Jim Green in a tight race on Saturday in a municipal election fought along party lines, which is unusual in many big Canadian cities. The NPA win comes after a much-publicized split in the left-leaning Coalition of Progressive Electors, or COPE. COPE swept a divided right-of-centre Non-Partisan Association from power in Vancouver in 2002. Headed by now-Senator (and outgoing Vancouver Mayor) Larry Campbell, COPE elected eight councillors in 2002, leaving the NPA with only two voices on council - Sullivan among them.

COPE, however, dissolved into internal bickering, which led to the emergence of Vision Vancouver, headed by Green. After Saturday's vote, council now has an even split between the right and left with Sullivan holding the deciding vote.

"You have said you want a government that makes decision by policy and not politics," Sullivan said in his victory speech. "And you agree council should exercise restraint in dealing with issues beyond our mandate." His final words could well have been a veiled stab at COPE's peace and justice committee, which has opposed the invasion of Iraq, the weaponization of space, and nuclear weapons.

The NPA had dominated the city's politics...before the 2002 COPE win. Political scientist Kennedy Stewart said the trend across the Lower Mainland of the province shows a shift to the right. "I don't think it's that voters shifted to the right, I just think that the left is so disorganized, in some cases pathetically so, that the right just kind of wins by default," he said. In Vancouver, he said that shift will impact issues such as the controversial safe-injection site for drug addicts and the provision of social housing.

Vancouver is a smashingly vibrant and cosmopolitan place, but needs to get a handle on its density and social dysfunction. Here is a letter-writer in the Vancouver Sun, the day before the election.

Vancouver's mayor should understand that his job is to ensure good governance of the city and to ensure that it remains the economic centre of the region. Unfortunately, the COPE-dominated city council has thrust its left-wing activist agenda onto unsuspecting city residents. The agenda has included: endless announcements about improving the (downtrodden) Downtown Eastside while ignoring the concerns of all other neighbourhoods; denying Vancouverites their right to access everyday low prices at Wal-Mart; and ensuring traffic chaos on the west side with proposed bike lanes on the Burrard Bridge. A vote for Jim Green and his "visionary" Vancouver team would ensure that a left-wing activist agenda would continue to predominate at city hall. Voters should remember that COPE and Vision Vancouver are effectively a team. Each party has only five candidates for council and COPE does not have a candidate for mayor. Vancouverites deserve better and should fully support Sam Sullivan and his NPA team.

And so they did. The thrust of local government in cities such as San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver has been social engineering and the politics of victimology, rather than excellence in service delivery for taxpaying property owners. A little bit of safety net goes a long way, and too much net tangles up everything - something the city's "progressive electors" didn't get. With business-friendly moderates back in power, perhaps the governance of Vancouver will start making sense again.

TECHNORATI TAGS: VANCOUVER, MAYOR, ELECTION, SAM SULLIVAN, JIM GREEN

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Posted by Matt Rosenberg at November 22, 2005 01:04 PM