2018 Greater Victoria Civic Election Review

I guess you have missed all the conservative thinkers and economists who are in support of basic income. Not that it is a municipal issue anyway as mentioned above.

LOL, as if the idea that people who live here should be able to afford housing is, "far left"!?!?

Now you are just talking out of your ass if you say that Together Victoria has taken the position that, "homeowners should not be ale to profit from housing."

These are all reasonably centrist ideas and to call them "far left" is to indulge in the sort of Tea Party/Trumpian re-framing that plagues our political discourse. Far left would be actual communism and collective ownership of all housing for starters.

Part of the reason I votes as I did (only one of my choices won) is that I strongly felt that under Helps, Isitt, etc, nothing would improve in terms of housing, affordability, reducing homelessness and so on. But I just don't see things improving, either because the solutions aren't within the ourview of municipal govt or because they don't have real solutions for the things that do.

Also, as a self identifying moderate leftie, I do not resonate with these people at all. I don't think it's because they're too far left, just that they seem to lack real soutions.

Let's say you put aside your concerns about whether your taxes will go up, etc and concern yourself only with caring about the poor and disadvantaged - have things gotten appreciably better for them? I'm not seeing it. And please correct me if I'm missing it. I'd genuinely like to be proven wrong.

This is my frustration as well!  I am not by any means "conservative" - despite being from Alberta, being an economist and it is painful to see such boneheaded policy that simply aggravates problems at a tremendous cost.  Further, I don't think we can get to a reasonable solution by saying it must exist within the core and fit within a rather limited box.  It must exist within the region but to demand that it exists within the 19 square km of Victoria proper is a bit much.  If you can have an affordable place within a 45 minute commute by public transportation, that is reasonable.  Or fine, you want within the core, then there might be a trade off, you might have to have a room mate or two.  Further, it doesn't have to be new - it has to meet needs.  Do you buy a new car when you want "affordable" transportation - heck no.  You buy used, or you buy a bike or you buy a bus pass.  I do think Victoria can accommodate more people, but it can't do so while retaining all of its single family homes on 6,000sq ft lots on main arterials.  It can't do so by refusing to allow duplexes and townhouses to be built.

I would still like to know what accounts for these huge numbers we keep seeing.

Only some of it can be attributed to population increases. Denise Blackwell's vote count almost quadrupling in Langford is pure population growth. Victoria is population growth too, but remember as new voters are created, old ones die. I think we are seeing the results of aggressive voter recruitment and followup because I doubt there's more than a few hundred new voters in Victoria since 2014.

Basic economic theory states that over time demand = supply. The problem is that populist politicians seek to try and adjust temporary imbalances with policies that actually make the problem worse. Does anyone think that 4 years from now housing and rental prices will be lower despite the hundred million dollars that Victoria will throw at the problem?

The prices won't be lower - simple inflation and ongoing over-demand will see to that - but the hope is that the prices will be lower than they otherwise would be were no solutions attempted.

It's also true, I think, that almost any attempted solution is better than no attempt at all; and it's going to take some trial and error to find a good one.  I'll cut some slack on the trial-and-error bit, as long as an honest effort is being made.

Lisa does have a lot of supporters- I don’t doubt that. However, the numbers are very odd. The vast majority of her voter seem to be the under 35 crowd. But do they all live in the city?

You'd be surprised, I assumed most of my folk's neighbourhood would be as rapidly anti-helps as they are, but it was Helps and Issit sign land there.  Doctors, lawyers, retired business owners all living in Rockland and all shockingly supportive of Helps, Isitt, Loveday, and the TV trio.

I think a big part of why the election was such a sweep was from the under-40 crowd really getting out the vote for once,  but the winners of the election all have broad support in older generations too, you can't win in Victoria without it.

One thing that really helped outreach was the early voting day. It meant it was possible to get a good amount of dinnertime door knocking in before darkness fell. 

Previous elections were around the middle of November when the sun sets late in the afternoon and people generally don't like unannounced visitors after dark. Social media outreach is valuable but face-to-face contact makes the most impact despite being terribly inefficient.

But do they all live in the city?

Lisa does have a lot of supporters- I don’t doubt that. However, the numbers are very odd. The vast majority of her voter seem to be the under 35 crowd. But do they all live in the city?

Okay tin-foil hat brigade, enough of the conspiracy theories. All these new people peddling it are starting to make this forum unbearable. The reality is:

1) Despite there being good council candidates on the slate, Stephen Hammond was a terrible mayoral candidate. He had no public presence, no name recognition, and the bare minimum for policy.

2) Lisa ran a superior campaign. She ID'd her supporters, and she got them out to vote. In 2014, she had over 200 volunteers on election day, and I presume she had the same if not more this time. How many did NewCouncil have? I bet it wasn't even close to 1/8 of that (I know another person's mayoral campaign I volunteered on in 2014 would have had something like that number) 

3) Whether you disagree with her or not, a lot of people who vote, especially green-voters, condo-dwellers, retirees, upper-middle-class progressives, women, and yes, students, strongly support what Lisa is doing. 

It doesn't take subterfuge for Lisa to win. 

Edited by John M., 24 October 2018 - 07:11 AM.

Yup, you're absolutely right.

Lisa was by and large the only candidate that made sense if you were coming from the left side of the spectrum as McGuigan didn't put in the time or the effort to build a serious base of supporters. 

Hammond was held back by a lame duck of a campaign that started too late, gave voters too little information and suffered from poor messaging.

I’ll agree with this if you would concede that deporting illegals and building a wall is reasonable and centrist

Yup, there are certainly people with a, "far right" take on those issues but neither of those are, "far right" per se.

I can't say, "building a wall is reasonable" BTW but that is my position on the issue, not a statement about the person I am arguing with.
 

The prices won't be lower - simple inflation and ongoing over-demand will see to that - but the hope is that the prices will be lower than they otherwise would be were no solutions attempted.

 

It's also true, I think, that almost any attempted solution is better than no attempt at all; and it's going to take some trial and error to find a good one.  I'll cut some slack on the trial-and-error bit, as long as an honest effort is being made.

Well that is always the default answer, things would have been worse if we didn't intervene!

If we look at the history of the housing market we see brief periods of rapid growth followed by longer periods of flattening as economics catch up. The cycle we are in is no different then what we have had in the past. 

You'd be surprised, I assumed most of my folk's neighbourhood would be as rapidly anti-helps as they are, but it was Helps and Issit sign land there.  Doctors, lawyers, retired business owners all living in Rockland and all shockingly supportive of Helps, Isitt, Loveday, and the TV trio.

 

I think a big part of why the election was such a sweep was from the under-40 crowd really getting out the vote for once,  but the winners of the election all have broad support in older generations too, you can't win in Victoria without it.

We talk about huge voter turnout but according with the CoV, the percentage increase was only marginally higher. I find it funny that we are talking about Hammond and Andrews being the "right wing" alternative! Perhaps part of the issue was that they were not "right wing" enough to give voters an alternative that motivated them to change.

This was an issue in many munis in my opinion. Most candidates simply parroted what they felt were the populous lines and everyone wound up sounding the same.

Edited by spanky123, 24 October 2018 - 08:46 AM.

We talk about huge voter turnout but according with the CoV, the percentage increase was only marginally higher. I find it funny that we are talking about Hammond and Andrews being the "right wing" alternative! Perhaps part of the issue was that they were not "right wing" enough to give voters an alternative that motivated them to change.

 

This was an issue in many munis in my opinion. Most candidates simply parroted what they felt were the populous lines and everyone wound up sounding the same.

I think a big part of the problem was that New Council's focus was on the mayor's chair, and had they focused on "council as a whole" and argued strongly that there needed to balance at the table to create good, effective policy.  Perhaps part of TV's strength was that they didn't run a mayoral candidate.

We talk about huge voter turnout but according with the CoV, the percentage increase was only marginally higher.

All through the 90s, the 00s and the beginning of the 2010s 6,800 votes was more than enough to get you to Victoria council. In 2014 it took over 8,000 and this year even Stephen Andrew's 9,098 was not nearly enough.

I had forgotten Alto ran unsuccessfully in 2005. Look how tight a race it was that year between winner Bea Holland and the losing VCE candidates. 

1. Bea Holland            5193 (-897)(inc)
2. Chantal Brodeur (VCE)  5152
3. Marianne Alto (VCE)    5140

Edited by Rob Randall, 24 October 2018 - 09:09 AM.

Check out the tc article on new councils fb page.

Link?

I suspect that letter to the editor was satire.

I suspect that letter to the editor was satire.

Wait, has Issit actually proposed a municipal income tax? I don't see that on his webpage. Municipalities don't have the authority to enact an income tax, do they?