The Developer Days and the need for reform Since the beginning of Vancouver Civic politics, the city has been dominated by real-estate interests, notably CPR, and big business looking for subsidies and profits. The reason for Vancouver's present importance and the present dominance of developers goes back to 1886. In 1886 the railway reached Port Moody, but unfortunately for CPR speculators had already purchased most of the land. So in 1887, CPR extended the railway fourteen miles to Vancouver in return for 6000 acres (what was then one third of Vancouver). In later years, CPR developed its land by creating small lots for the working class in East Vancouver and larger lots destined for a more rich cliental in West Vancouver. This has led to the present economic and political east/west division in Vancouver. In 1936, due to the economic depression, the Canadian Commonwealth Federation (socialist) won five out of the thirteen city council seats. In 1937 the Non Partisan . Association was formed to combat a socialist take-over and also "to keep parties and politics out of city hall". CCF lost ground and due to a lack of finances compared with big business, it dropped out of civic politics in 1955. From 1937 to 1972, NPA had a majority on City Council, the Parks Board, and the School Board with a relatively weak opposition. Citizens' Groups and the beginning of REFORM Several important ratepayers (taxpayers) groups were formed in the 1950's and 1960's to fight for the rights of the general public in conflict against the developers. They supported an increase in rapid transit, and a shift in taxation from homeowners to big business. They did not agree that people would want to live in skyscrapers, and they therefore did not want City Hall to subsidize developers. For most of the city's history developers had a good public image, but slowly starting in the 1950's and gaining speed in the 1960's, the developers became unpopular and seen as favoured by city hall. In the late 1960's to early 1970's discussion sprang up over the Block 42-52 Project. It included Eatons department store, 2 tall office buildings, an underground shopping mall, and a parking garage at the corner of Granville and Georgia. It was the first major development receive strong opposition. Harry Rankin led the opposition to the plan, criticizing the subsidies granted by the NPA council to the developers and the way in which the property had been appropriated from merchants to sell to the developers. After much media support, a plebiscite about development passed with 70.9% in favour. Another major development that met with much opposition was the plan for the Entry to Stanley Park. The opponents, led by Harry Rankin and several ratepayers groups, was against subsidizing the development, losing a beautiful public area, and the loss of view to other downtown residents. The result was a compromise in which one half on the entrance was developed. (*not useful? The development of the CPR lands around False Creek was another big issue at the time. Harry Rankin wanted all of the land to be used for low income housing. The result was one third of the land went to that purpose. *) The ISSUES Housing and Tenant's Rights In May, 1979, a city planning report "Affordable Housing Study" stated that 25% or 40000 of Vancouver's households had housing problems. There were many households paying more then they could afford for rent or mortgage interest, there were housing compatibility problems for the disabled and seniors, and a lack of good family housing. In the late 1960's a tenants' movement started with a goal of capping rent increases, limiting rent increases to a once a year occasion, limiting security deposits, and protection for tenants from eviction without justification. Bruce Yorke (future COPE candidate), led the movement's boycotts and withholdings of rent. Some reforms were gradually won from the provincial government, however low-cost housing remained a very important part of Harry Rankin and later on COPE's electoral platforms. Taxation and fair assessment The Vancouver Central Council of Ratepayers was formed in 1960 and from then on they tried to achieve a more fair taxation system for the homeowner. They wanted big businesses, which were assessed at anywhere from half to a fifteenth of their market value, to be assessed at full market value. The VCCR wanted the tax burden to shift from small businesses and average homeowners, who's property was assessed at market value, to big business. There was also a call from Harry Rankin for there to be a tax on the developer's profits originating from the high density zoning of their land. Freeways "Our committee shares the concern of many citizens that a freeway system will cause impossible traffic congestion in the downtown area with ugly structures of concrete and steel that artificially divide up our city, pollute our air to the point of endangering our health, divert still more of the limited downtown land at great expense to parking lots and saddle us with enormous debts and taxes. Freeways encourage the very problem they are designed to solve -- traffic congestion -- and lead only to still more freeways" (Ben Swankey, chairman of Citizens' Committee for Public Transport and member of COPE) In the late sixties, the developers and City Council came up with the idea of building lots of freeways through downtown Vancouver to improve traffic congestion, increase land values, ease access to certain areas, benefit construction companies, and to promote growth on the North Shore and in False Creek. The plan called for construction of a third crossing of Burrard Inlet, a new Georgia viaduct, a link from the viaduct to the third crossing, a corridor from the viaduct to Highway 401, and for several other freeways. In 1967-1968 City Council tried to build a freeway through Chinatown, but had to cave in due to great public pressure. In 1971, City Council passed a motion to spend 3.2 million dollars on the third crossing with COPE and The Elector Action Movement (TEAM) opposing. 21631 people signed a petition opposing the freeways and presented it to the provincial legislature. The mayor Tom Cambell (NPA) was quite disgusted after some opposition to the plan and stated that the third crossing was being "sabotaged by Maoists, Communists, pinkos, leftwingers and hamburgers" (hamburger referring to someone without a university education). The freeways were a major election issue and in 1972 when TEAM swept into council the freeways were stopped. Wards For the past 58 years Vancouver has elected alderman by giving each voter the same number of votes as there are positions to fill. The parties run slates of candidates, and the candidates with the most votes get elected. A ward system, would divide Vancouver up into regions, and each region would elect someone. "At one extreme are those who believe wards would bring the worst evils of corruption; at the other are those who believe wards would bring nirvana to the neighborhoods and perfect democracy to city hall."(Paul Tennant) COPE and the NDP supported the ward system while TEAM supported a partial ward system and the NPA was in favour of continuing the present electoral system. In 1973, the TEAM council sponsored a very misleading plebiscite that skewed the results against the establishment of the ward system. In 1978 another plebiscite, supported by COPE and opposed by TEAM and NPA, gave the ward system 51.7% to 48.3% for the present system, however city council did not take any action. Downtown Eastside Residents' Association (DERA) "Their homes are frequently cubicles ten feet square in cockroach-filled hotels and rooming houses; their living rooms are beer parlours; and their diet is often compromised of macaroni, bologna, white bread and tea."(Jean Swanson, secretary of DERA) The Downtown Eastside is Vancouver's poorest neighborhood. It is the home of many pensioners, the injured, the sick, the handicapped, and some WW II vets. The DERA, formed in 1973, supports tenants rights and criticizes the governmental policies that affect the residents. The original staff of the DERA from 1973-1978 were Bruce Eriksen the president, Libby Davies the vice president, and Jean Swanson the secretary. These three activists later on all ran for City Council with Eriksen and Davies being elected several times. The COPE/NDP unity mayoral candidate in 1990 Jim Green was then currently the director of the DERA. The DERA demonstrates the important links between COPE and some community groups. TEAM TEAM was formed in 1968 because NPA was losing support appearing as a "developer party", because some business was hurt by some of the development projects, and in fear of a swing to the left after Harry Rankin's victory in 1966. TEAM was a middle class party of mostly liberals, with a conservative and a reform (NDPer) faction. It received a landslide victory in 1972 but went into decline forever since. In 1976, Darlene Marzari and Mike Harcourt quit TEAM after Harcourt had failed to win the nomination for mayor, and won seats as independent. TEAM continued to decline, until in the mid eighties when they stopped fielding candidates. Harry Rankin and COPE "I spend most of my time fighting for reforms of one kind or another. I'll continue to do so even though I realize that many of the reforms I advocate won't be realized in our present society. But I keep on fighting for those reforms because I know that if we don't keep on struggling to make things better, we'll lose the gains we've made. If we don't have citizen groups making their voices heard, the developers would have it all their way at City Hall. If we didn't have trade unions, workers would soon be back in the 19th century as far as wages and conditions are concerned. I know from experience as do most people, that if we keep fighting hard we can win some battles, no matter how small they may be."(Harry Rankin) In 1953, Harry Rankin, a socialist lawyer, first ran for School Board. He ran again several more times (all without winning), then in 1961 he ran for Council instead because that is where the real power lay. He was an officer in the Grandview Ratepayers' Association as well as the Vancouver Central Council of Ratepayers. In 1966 Harry Rankin was elected to City Council with help from the now well practiced Harry Rankin Election Committee. On July 31, 1968 COPE was formed. The goal of the new party was to regroup all of the reform movements, however the NDP never joined. COPE was supported by the labour movemement, the Harry Rankin Election Committee, and various ratepayers groups. The COPE platform supported the transfer of taxation from homeowners to big business, a tax of 50% on rezoning profits, subisidized low income housing, no more subsidies to developers, subidized rapid transit, a ward system, tenants' rights, real pollution standards, putting public use before developement, and putting education before money. The COPE therefore differed strongly from the NPA which did not have a party platform and allowed its aldermen to vote on "conscience". The divided left Year Candidate cooperation between NDP and COPE:Council 1968 COPE ran only slate 1970 NDP and COPE ran half slates (NDP:5, COPE:5) 1972 NDP and COPE ran almost full competing slates 1974 NDO and COPE ran half slates 1976 COPE: full/almost full slate 3 indep. (NDP) 1978 COPE:full/almost full slate 3 or 2 indep. (NDP) 1980 COPE: almost full slate several Harcourt indep. 1982 COPE: 8 Harcourt indep.:3 1984 COPE: 6 Harcourt indep.:4 1986 COPE: 7 NDP:3 1988 COPE and NDP ran half slates 1990 COPE and NDP ran half slates 1993 ???Possibility of Civic NDP merging into COPE??? Vancouver City Council (Mayor and 10 aldermen) Election NPA TEAM COPE Ind. Majority 1968 8 2 1 0 right 1970 7 3 1 0 right 1972 1 9 1 0 center 1974 4 6 1 0 center 1976 3 5 1 2 center 1978 5 1 1 4 center-right 1980 5 2 3 1 center-right 1982 5 0 4 2 center-left 1984 4 0 5 2 center-left 1986 n/a 0 2 n/a right 1988 n/a 0 n/a 0 right 1990 6 0 5 0 right