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Vancouver
Ordinary tales of everyday political manipulation
COPE’s AGM takeover keeps Louis safely on the inside
by Reed Eurchuk
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“Politricks” and anti-democratic manipulation were the order of the day at the COPE Annual General Membership [AGM] meeting on May 27. Local NDP MLAs, labour bureaucrats and civic NDP types teamed up to wipe out the COPE Classics. They spared Tim Louis, the better to control him.
The meeting was stacked with 50 or so pink-cheeked middle-class white kids who, with their family members, voted en masse for a slate: "the Group of Seven."
I would guess few had ever previously attended a COPE function of any sort, and some may never have heard of the organization. They voted strictly along age, friendship, and family lines. The set-up was so obvious that one candidate running against the slate, Sid Tan, apologized for not being young. Four of the seven candidates were 25 or under, and featured themes in their speeches along the lines of “getting youth involved in municipal politics” and “gosh, let's all get a grand coalition with all the ‘progressive’ parties.”
New to the party?
Only middle-class white kids can have the sense of entitlement that allows them to parachute a group in to control an executive board they have only had superficial involvement with. Most people work within a political group of their choice, gaining experience and knowledge, before running for senior office. Planning for the coup had been in the works for quite some time. In February 2007, a blog called vancouverkid. blogspot reported back then that planning was in the works to grab COPE’s board. But the kids cannot claim responsibility for this. Their chaperones, the three older members of the slate and their handlers, deserve credit for that.
Satisfaction
Three local representatives of the most ineffectual opposition BC has ever seen—NDP MLAs Jenny Kwan, Shane Simpson, and David Chudnovsky—looked on with an expression of grim satisfaction on their faces, kind of like a group of morticians expecting a natural disaster.
As in 2005, machinations at the Vancouver District Labour Council [VDLC] executive played a role in the skullduggery. Chudnovsky had a close relationship with some of the actors. One of the three chaperones on the “Group of Seven” slate, David Ages, chaired Chudnovsky’s campaign for MLA in the Kingsway riding. Undoubtedly key here was photogenic Parks Board Commissioner Spencer Herbert, another alumnus of the Chudnovsky machine. Herbert also has worked with Judith Marcuse, Rachel Marcuse’s mother. In 2004, Herbert and Rachel Marcuse worked together on one of Judith Marcuse’s projects. With Herbert—who has voted for massive subsidies for tourism spectacles, privatization of public space, and erosion of public park land while at the Parks Board—as a sponsor, the politics of this crew are questionable.
At the AGM, the first vote set the pattern when long-time COPE activist and partner of Tim Louis, Penny Parry, went down to defeat at the hands of ex-COPE councillor Ellen Woodsworth, who had fought aggressively for the shotgun wedding with Vision which bore fruit in the disastrous 2005 near-destruction of COPE. The first vote set the template for votes throughout the afternoon. The voting split fairly evenly, with Woodsworth gaining 197 votes to Parry’s 169, or about 54% to 46%.
Following the first vote, a member put forward a motion requesting the voting results, which led to the disclosure of each vote. The importance of the votes lay in the evidence of the clear split in the voting. If the meeting had not been stacked, the Group of Seven would not have had a chance.
Louis toyed with
The low point of the day came when ex-COPE School Board Trustee Adrienne Montani nominated Nathan Lusignan to oppose ex-COPE Councillor Tim Louis for Corresponding Secretary. This was the fourth contest of the day and the Group of Seven candidates had taken all up to this point, so Lusignan could easily have taken the post. When it came to accept the nomination, however, Lusignan strode to the mic and declined, thereby saving Louis’s neck. This piece of contrived political theatre had a simple message: a magnanimous offering of an olive branch to the Classics. On cue, the place broke into a staged standing ovation. Magnanimous? Hardly. By keeping him within their web, the manipulators can control him and the energy and the credibility he brings to the party. Outside the party, Louis represents more of a threat to COPE.
After the charade, Montani went to Louis to tell him she had only participated in the farce because she knew Lusignan would decline the nomination. In a telephone conversation, I asked Montani if she felt there was an ethical dimension to her act. She couldn’t see one. She said that Lusignan had asked her to nominate him specifically so he could make the gesture, because he respected Louis’s work. Of course one of the Group of Seven could have said this at any time. They did not need to stage the mock execution. Montani put the noose around Louis’s neck, then said, “just kidding.”
Donalda Greenwell-Baker, re-elected as a member of the COPE Executive and on the Group of Seven slate, also sits on the executive of the VDLC. On May 7, the Executive sent a brochure promoting the Group of Seven through its mailing list. Following this, Tim Louis sent a request that the VDLC members also get a similar brochure promoting the rival “Keep it COPE” slate. The VDLC Executive refused to do so.
A summary of the incident by six local labour activists, entitled A Gross Breach of Democracy, suggests the question remains whether Greenwall-Baker, while a candidate of the Group of Seven slate, spoke against allowing the VDLC members to receive the further information regarding the Keep it COPE slate. If so, she would have been in a conflict of interest.
Procedure
On May 15, the day after Louis had sent his request, the VDLC had a regularly scheduled meeting with all delegates. The delegates were not told that the Executive had received the Louis request. Several delegates who wanted to raise the issue were not able, due to procedural formalities. Then, without any information regarding the alternative slate and without any forewarning, the VDLC Executive put forward a motion—which passed easily—endorsing the Group of Seven slate.
The 2007 COPE AGM will be remembered for being as crude a piece of political manipulation as the city has ever seen. The disdain for Vancouver’s “left” establishment for democracy shone through once again.
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