Rise of the Middle in B.C. Civic Elections

Gregor Robertson, Vision Vancouver | BCBusiness
Gregor Robertson and his centrist Vision Vancouver party won the City of Vancouver municipal election on November 19, 2011.

Voters in B.C.’s two biggest cities decided to remain firmly in the centre in recent civic elections. Could it be because they would rather live their lives than play around in politics?

It looks like voters in B.C.’s two largest cities aimed for the centre in the weekend’s civic elections. Thanks; we needed that.

In Vancouver, they re-elected Mayor Gregor Robertson, whose Vision party trounced the leftist COPE and the supposedly Non-Partisan Association, that everybody knows is the party of the establishment – or the right.

Vision is more like the old team centrist party that revitalized the city in the ’70s and ’80s by refusing to play the silly old left-right wars that have so often divided Vancouver.

In Surrey, they elected the formidable Dianne Watts, whose Surrey First team is, as Watts described it, “a coalition of independents” from the right, the left, and even the middle.

I know it’s fashionable to sneer at centrist politics in B.C., where the right-left divide has been entrenched since the days of communists vs. capitalists. But parties that play the extreme type of politics rarely get anything done in cities. Municipal politics operate closer to the bone, so everybody feels they have a say in how it’s done. Larding it over with sweeping political agendas and fiery rhetoric generally doesn’t play with a voter population who would mostly like to be left alone to live their lives.

“Just make things work,” is their cry – which, while probably not very rallying, certainly expresses their feelings succinctly.  

In Vancouver, despite the NPA’s attempt to make election issues out of trivia like backyard chickens and bike lanes, voters wanted them to attack broad problems like housing affordability, economic development, and sustainability.

In Surrey, they ignored independent Ross Buchanan’s complaints that Watts disrespected voters by approving a gas tax increase and allowing former U.S. President George W. Bush to speak in the city. Not exactly stuff that stirs the emotions, which is why they probably liked Watts’s plan to revamp the transportation around the sprawling city.

Transportation and economic development may not be a flag that many voters will follow emotionally, but they sure touch them in terms of practicality.

And centrist parties are, if anything, practical.