The Sun Will Come Up Tomorrow

49°13' North; 123°06' West

No, everybody's favorite orphan, Annie, is not in town.

Instead, that's what Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell had to say last night when the NO side won the Ward vote 54-46%.

Unfortunately, there is no sun to be seen this morning. The cloud is thick and low and the dark, dank drizzle looks like it just must might go on until April.

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Clearly this debacle will be seen as a sign that the NPA has been resurrected, which is downright scary, especially if it elevates Sam Sullivan to the top of the heap.

And while the chattering classes in this town, such as they are, will babble on and on about the broad coalition that was the public face of the KnoWards scare campaign, there will be very little attention paid to the groups scare tactics or the source of the big money that backed them.

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Listen.

I hope I'm wrong with my take on all of this.

I hope the Progressives and the Greens that fought against the straight Ward option for righteous reasons, folks like Tom Pryce-Digby who wrote a fair and balanced piece in the Tyee just before the vote, can exploit their newfound notoriety to push hard for a broad-based Citizen Assembly with a real mandate and real teeth that can generate a truly viable and inclusive proportional representation option.

And I hope that more Progressives who will fight for people rather than condo towers, people like Andrea Reimer, can use this momentum to grab hold of council, school board and parks board seats the next time around.

The only trouble with this wishful thinking is that, in reality, the NO win just slammed the door shut on all of those possibilities.

Because, effectively, the big money boys and their hand-picked slates have won again.

And if you think Sam Sullivan is gonna take the initiative to force that door back open against the glittering glass and concrete mass of NPA heavyweights like Shason, Rostich, McClanaghan and Brown et al. you just might be in for an awfully long wait.

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Update: 10:15am Sunday Oct 17/04
Sam Sullivan is now saying that he will make a request to the people who backed 'his' KnoWards campaign that they allow him to reveal their names..... Don't hold your breath.