There’s a new kid in town, and politics will never be the same.
With any luck.
The new kid is the North Vancouver Citizen Action Association, aka NVCAA.
Hopefully they’re working on a new name. NVCAA doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.
But I suppose the name doesn’t matter if this new association, dedicated to running a full slate of candidates in the next municipal election a year away on Oct. 20, 2018, ends up making a difference to life in North Vancouver.
By that I mean the City of North Vancouver, as there are no plans for Citizen Action in the district, or West Van for that matter, in the foreseeable future. That could change, as Citizen Guy Heywood, one of the founders of NVCAA, points out that the name is “scalable.”
So the NVCAA will be offering to supplant the current council led by Mayor Darrell Mussatto, Craig Keating, Linda Buchanan, Rod Clark, Pam Bookham, Don Bell and Holly Back. Did I make sure to get everyone in there? Is anyone offended by the order in which I typed their names?
The new kid is bound to make the election more interesting, at least I hope so because last time 5,488 out of 34,000-plus electors voted for Mussatto, which was enough to get him elected. Whatever your politics, you have to agree that North Vancouver’s democratic vigour needs a boost.
Heywood and friends plan to provide said boost. “We’re incredibly lucky here,” he said. “If democracy can’t work here,” he told me the other day, “it can’t work anywhere.”
Anyone who’s ever squandered even a fraction of mindshare on North Van city politics will recall that Guy Heywood is a former North Van city councillor, famous for his excruciating integrity. So it comes as no surprise that all corporate, developer and union campaign donations will be off-limits for NVCAA-backed candidates. This thing is going to be for the people, and that means paid for by the people, dammit.
It also means that candidates who take donations from corporations, etc. will have to spend all-candidates meetings explaining why. That alone should make the next election more interesting.
Guy Heywood comes across as the poster-boy for rational thought. But he approaches something like passion when he gets warmed up about why we need a citizen’s action association.
“We can do better than this,” he declares. “It would be so much better if the city worked for the people, not for developers and not for self-interested bureaucrats!”
I guess so, but they’re usually the only people who turn up at council meetings. They and the single-issue obsessives. Which reminded me to ask Guy how they’re going to keep those worthies from capturing the NVCAA and holding it hostage through sheer mulishness.
“No extreme views!” he said, although it’s kind of open to interpretation what constitutes extreme. Some people, for example, might think it’s extreme to ban corporate, etc. campaign donations.
Still, hope is more than the next stop after Chilliwack. Hope is essential if we’re going to successfully grapple with our first-world problems here on the North Shore. And there’s a passage on the NVCAA.org website that kindles hope in the dark corners of my cynicized brain:
“The gridlock on North Vancouver streets any time of the day or day of the week is obviously a consequence of the rapid pace of development even though every major development came with a traffic study claiming there would be no adverse impact from the new project.”
Exactly.
Doesn’t it make sense to study these cumulative patterns across the entire North Shore to really figure out what’s going on? Of course that would require a deep level of collaboration between three different governments, all of whom are convinced only darkness lies beyond their boundaries. This is particularly tough in the city, which is entirely surrounded by the district, but never underestimate the insularity of a bureaucrat.
So, it’s a start. But it’s hardly the end. Someday soon, the NVCAA will have candidates and policies, and maybe even money. Is Guy Heywood going to be one of those candidates? Mayor, for example?
He’s not ready to make that commitment. But will anyone be surprised if he declares?
Better yet, will it be a surprise if the next mayor of the City of North Vancouver gets more than 5,488 votes? Democracy restored, thanks to the NVCAA?
In the immortal words of Plato or somebody: If only.
Journalist and communications consultant Paul Sullivan has been a North Vancouver resident since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of Madonna. p.sullivan@breakthroughpr.com.
What are your thoughts? Send us a letter via email by clicking here or post a comment below.
