Can someone remind me again how much CUPE Local 15 donated to Vision Vancouver and its candidates?

@ Frances Bula #2:

Heh. That’s why it’s called a reflex (ie. an “involuntary and nearly instantaneous movement in response to a stimulus”).

FWIW, the secrecy seems a bit odd, but I don’t know enough about the process to know whether there might be valid reasons for it. I suppose it will all be made public before long, though.

@ brother brilliant #1:

Can someone remind me again how much CUPE Local 15 donated to Vision Vancouver and its candidates?

Not exactly sure (is there data out there?) but probably less than developers gave to either Vision or the NPA.

Thought of The Day

“It’s not the secrecy that is bothersome, no, it’s the lack of accountability and the anonymity following the secrecy fallout.”

But here’s some good news. I’m pleased to be the first to bring it to the public… the CUPE 15, City of Vancouver and Vision’s joint Press Release on the settlement:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i-L3YTeJJM

Mahna, mahna, pa tee, pa tee pee…

We live in Vancouver and this keeps us busy.

From the Courier – November 2011

Who’s on the money for COPE and Vision
Another look at who funds Vancouver’s civic parties
By Tom Sandborn, Contributing writer
November 3, 2011

In my last column I looked at top donors for the NPA, Vancouver’s voice of the business class. This time, let’s take a look at top donors for Vision Vancouver and COPE, and then reflect on the impending civic election.

Vision’s largest backer in 2008 was the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which donated close to a quarter million dollars to Vision and its candidates. Next in line was a cluster of linked organizations, Strategic Communications, Communicopia Incorporated and Renewal Partners. Together these three bodies gave Vision over $198,000.00. StratCom and Communicopia are public relations and communications companies, while Renewal Partners is one of the main vehicles for Carol Newell and Joel Solomon, both heirs to substantial fortunes and both committed to using their wealth to promote social change. Renewal, says its website, “_puts the powerful tools of business and philanthropy to work in the creation of a triple bottom line economy.” When right wing pundits carry on about the dangers of off shore money having too much impact on Vancouver politics, they often invoke Newell and Solomon, both U.S. born, as the scare figures to illustrate their trumped up and partisan alarm.

(A smaller but more mysterious supporter of Vision in 2008 was a firm identified as Aurora Trading, which gave $30,000 dollars. No such firm seems to be listed in any Lower Mainland phonebook, and even the omniscient Google comes up empty of B.C. entries for the company.)

Other significant Vision donors included the Hospital Employees Union, Keg Restaurants, the Canadian Labour Congress and Canacord Capital.

COPE, the city party widely and accurately viewed as voicing the concerns of working people and the poor in the city, did not benefit from much support from local developers or from the progressive heirs at Renewal Partners. Although COPE received a few hundred dollars from Renewal and Joel Solomon, and, as noted in my last column Concord Pacific head Terry Hui gave a puzzling $2,000 to the left wing party, most of COPE’s funding came from organized labour (with CUPE giving nearly $200,000 and VESTA, the BCTF section that represents elementary school teachers in Vancovuer putting up nearly $50,000) and individual donors.

So, knowing a bit more about who funded Vancouver politics last time, what conclusions might we draw about the upcoming election? First of all, forget the nonsense about “special interests.” The usual drill for all parties is to condemn the “special interests” that fund the opposition and imply that their own donors are inspired only by the highest ideals. This is not, in the end, persuasive. It makes more sense to assume that all donations are colored by the long-term goals of the donor. It also makes sense to vote for the party or candidates whose donor lists and public pronouncements suggest they support the goals and policies the voter favours. Remember that the city gets the government policies that donors pay for, by and large.

@MB #10,

I thought not. The wording of your post #4 was a bit unclear.

@ brother brilliant #1,

I stand corrected (#5) — at least for the 2008 election. According to the article posted by Teririch, CUPE donated a small fortune to Vision that year.

@teririch #9:

Not sure if this is part of the quote or your own contribution:

“So, knowing a bit more about who funded Vancouver politics last time, what conclusions might we draw about the upcoming election? First of all, forget the nonsense about “special interests.” The usual drill for all parties is to condemn the “special interests” that fund the opposition and imply that their own donors are inspired only by the highest ideals. This is not, in the end, persuasive. It makes more sense to assume that all donations are colored by the long-term goals of the donor. It also makes sense to vote for the party or candidates whose donor lists and public pronouncements suggest they support the goals and policies the voter favours. Remember that the city gets the government policies that donors pay for, by and large.”

I wonder if we might make a distinction between special interests and public service unions in this regard. After all, the authority (whether be City council or the Legislature or whatever) is the body which will be negotiating with the public service unions on “our” behalf. Does it make sense to permit public service unions to influence an election which will determine the identity of the party on the other side of the negotiating table.

@IanS: Gee, were you at the Liberal party conference on the weekend. I am all in favour of corporations, businesses and unions from being prohibited from contributing money or goods in lieu to political parties at the federal, provincial or civic level. I would also favour limiting individual contributions. Why? Just look south for the obscenity happening there.
However, our provincial Liberals, it appears, just want to limit union contributions without limiting corporations and businesses. And the reason is why?
I would also favour during election campaigns the names of all donors being disclosed within a week of the donation and no donations within two weeks of election day.
We may something like this when the NDP get in next May.

@spartikus #16,

While I think there is a distinction to be made between developers contributing money in the hope of supporting a “friendly” council and a public service union influencing the identity of the party it will be negotiating with, I don’t disagree with your point.

Out of curiousity, what do you mean by “publicly financed”?

@IanS # 15:

All the content was taken from the article – it was a cut and paste.

I wonder what these ‘donors’ are expecting in return?

Taken from an article by Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun, January 2012

…..The local elections task force noted in its report that companies, non-resident property holders and non-Canadians still have a right to have a say in how their cities operate, and it rejected the idea of banning donations from those non-voters.
Robertson himself benefited from donations from a number of Americans, including Oprah Winfrey’s “healthy living” expert Dr. Andrew Weil, heirs to Roy A. Hunt’s Alcoa fortune, New York recycling executive Richard Perl, Tennessee realtor Mark Deutschmann and organic yogurt magnate Gary Hirshberg. Many of those had connections to Robertson’s friend and mentor Joel Solomon and his Renewal Partners organization. Overall, through Renewal and Solomon and his partner Carolyn Newell, Robertson received $95,103 in 26 transactions in his inaugural run for office in 2008. He maintains he no longer solicits support from U.S.-based charities and groups he’s worked with.
Vision now wants to extend election financing reform to include “continuous disclosure.” They say this would increase transparency and help restore voter confidence

http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2012/01/25/why-vision-vancouver-wants-to-ban-corporate-union-and-foreign-donations-in-local-elections/

@waltsyss 14-and if the majority of city council owe their positions in part to the very people whose raises they are approving…?

@Fabula 2-as one of the people paying these union members salaries, I’d kinda like to know what the deal is so I can make my views kniwn to Council before they vote (not that Vision will listen).

@teririch 23
Right on! After receiving donations from “American philanthropists” through the creative laundering of Solo, Boy Robby wants to get clean now. Gee, he sounds just like GW Bush after stealing his first mandate. And the similarities do not stop here…
I’m reading all this comments, all this pro & con arguments and I end up going back to Glissy’s PR @ 7 comment “Mahna, mahna, pa tee, pa tee pee…” Why would I do that? 🙂

@brilliant:

“as one of the people paying these union members salaries, I’d kinda like to know what the deal is so I can make my views kniwn to Council before they vote”

You can make your views known without knowing the specifics of the deal. To take your reasoning and turn it around, if you were in negotiations with a private sector boss (assuming you have one) it would be appropriate for your co-workers to know the specifics of the deal before it was signed, as it might impact their work conditions or the available pool for their wages/benefits in a comparable way to the impact this deal might have on your access to civic resources or your tax burden. I put it to you that very few people would agree to that scenario… and in fact unions are generally far more transparent about their pay/benefits than comparable non-union workplaces. In fact, many have their agreed-upon collective agreements online for anyone to peruse.

Waltyss #

“The issue of what donors want in return is a chicken and egg kind of question. ”
No it’s not. They sponsor their returns… in future public contracts and tax incentives.
If you belive they are attending $1,000s/plate fund raiser because of the goodness of their hearts, you’re either naive or their treasurer…

“Some people(the ones on this blogue are obvious) automatically believe that someone contributing is trying to buy influence and to some extent that may be true. ”
Gee, what would trigger that in people?

“However, it may equally be true that the donor is contributing because the candidate or party already agrees with their views and they simply want to elect someone whose views are more in line with theirs.”
Yup, that must be it! LOL! Nothing to do with selling “local” foods from Washington state, double billing BCHydro rates in a City owned Village disaster, appointing their people from Chicago in position of power changing policies, selling imported bikes to be used on … “safely separated bike lanes”, a 500 years crazy plan… nothing to do with that!
Please.

@Chris Keam #32

Perhaps it’s because governments have demonstrated they cannot adequately deal with immediate, identified problems that causes one to be skeptical that they could formulate adequate responses to hypothetical issues 500 years in the future even if they could miraculously divine what those issues will be.

@MB #34,

Vested interests and the need to get reelected every few years.

@Bill:

The Magna Carta is just one example of a government designed initiative that has lasted centuries. To the best of my knowledge it doesn’t have an expiry date. It’s designed not for a piffling 500 years, but eternity. Same for various documents such as America’s Constitution and Declaration of Independence. The street grid pattern of urban development is another example of government mandated ideas that continue to show the ability of smart people to design things that last. Add in the occasional castle or fort, and we see just how adept humans and their organizations are at building good stuff with no best before date.

Hi Bill:

Below, from the first section of the Magna Carta. Numerous other instances within it of similar wording and intent:

“We have also granted to all freemen of our kingdom, for us and our heirs forever, all the underwritten liberties, to be had and held by them and their heirs, of us and our heirs forever.”

Chris, your comments remind me of Thomas Homer Dixon’s The Upside of Down.

Homer Dixon put a great deal of thought into the long range future of civilization, and drew several key conclusions from his extensive research on complexity and resilience in history.

The conundrum here in this discussion board is probably related to the relativity of different scales of time. We’re muddling through our days trying to make a living, raising the kids, saving for retirement, and thinking about the long range, let alone the next decade, just isn’t high on the list. In fact, it’s a focal point of ridicule, the range of dreamers in some people’s eyes.

Some think government should just get out of people’s lives. And that seems to be a very pursuasive way of conducting one’s life until, say, the next earthquake when suddenly everyone really needs government, and heavily criticizes it for a failure in long range planning and for willful ignorance for not issuing that tsunami warning until an hour has past, and for not having an army of urban rescue personnel on standby.

Just imagine if the 7.7 tremblor occurred directly under Vancouver and garnered the pathetic response by senior governments we just saw in Haida Gwaii. Or picture the West Coast in 75 years when the lack of adaptation measures for rising seas, summers puncuated with 40-degree weeks and winters by more frequent and intense low pressure storms really come into play. And a world economy heavily impacted in mid-century by the laws of thermodynamics related to energy supply/demand and price challenges.

Planning should not a dirty word or a source if ridicule.

@ Bill 41

I’m confused. Wasn’t John Lennon Christ?

“There is one institution that is a credible example to prove your point – religion.”

Yeah, too easy, and I didn’t see the need to drag my friends with faith into such a foolish tete-a-tete.

And of course, we can all breath a sigh of relief that you’re not in charge of nuclear waste disposal:

“At this time there are no facilities for permanent disposal of high-level radioactive waste. Since the only way radioactive wastes finally become harmless is through decay, which for some isotopes contained in high-level wastes can take hundreds of thousands of years, the wastes must be stored in a way that provides adequate protection for very long times.”

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/radwaste.html

@Chris Keam

Chris, with the exception of the Norwegian seed bank, these are not examples of 500 year plans. Preserving artifacts or storing nuclear materials safely requires no anticipation of the needs of the future or the challenges that future generations may face – if you want the artifacts to last you preserve them and if you don’t want the nuclear waste to leak out you make it secure. As for the BC Rail lease it had nothing to do with anticipating that our descendants in 990 years will benefit from this transaction and everything to do with politics – so the Liberals could say they didn’t really sell BC Rail, they only leased it.

As for the seed bank it is a rather pessimistic anticipation of the future (Scandinavians have such a bleak outlook, must be the socialism) but they could be proven right if we do nothing about Iran going nuclear and they make good on their threat to wipe Israel off the map. After a few thousand years we can open the vault and replant all of our food crops. Of course we have to find something to eat in the meantime but maybe the next 500 year project will be to build a bigger tunnel full of freeze dried food.

Building something so that it lasts more than one year or even 500 years is not a 500 year plan. A 500 year plan is deciding where we want to be in 500 years and laying out the steps to get there anticipating all the factors that will determine the success of the plan. We can’t even deal with known problems such as the unsustainable health care model or the mismatch of the education of our young people with the opportunities for employment yet you expect that we are going to anticipate future problems and identify solutions for the next 500 years. Dream on.