It's not You, it's my Labour Council

At their October 18 meeting, the Vancouver District Labour Council (VDLC) denied endorsements to Green Party Vancouver School Trustee Andrea Reimer and North Vancouver Mayoral Candidate Darrell Mussato.

While the VDLC claims to speak for over 60,000 union members in the Lower Mainland, and everyone who checks in here regularly knows this page is as pro-union as it gets, I have my doubts. I suspect that if they're anything like the Labour Council of which I was an executive member a few years ago, they speak for the militant vanguard that also hold IWW cards and hold Gordon Campbell personally responsible for Ginger Goodwin's murder.

This page also has a problem, stemming from the Lower Mainland's Balkanized and Byzantine municipal governance, with people who can't vote in a jurisdiction endorsing (or not) candidates within that jurisdiction. Given that the endorsement votes were close, an important question emerges: were Van City VDLC delegates denied the right to endorse an Andrea Reimer because delegates outside Vancouver voted against her?

While Reimer's Green Party affiliation is cited as the reason for being denied the endorsement, it doesn't wash with this page. The VDLC may be supporting COPE candidates, but in turn, COPE has historically supported the Green Party by leaving room on Council, Parks Board, and School Board slates for Green candidates. Reimer's School Board tenure has seen her standing beside BCTF Teachers and CUPE BC Support Staff, while at the same time, standing against privatization and festering corporate culture in public schools. As a member of CUPE BC, I don't see a problem with that.

As for Mussato, this is a member of CUPE Local 873 running against one Barbara Sharp, who third-time charmed a successful vote on the RAV line, which, in the initial stages of construction, is already demonstrating the disastrous consequences of public-private partnerships. Mussato's failure to secure a VDLC endorsement has this page scratching his head until he can feel his frontal lobe. I've been involved with a number of Union-based political action committees, and Union activists seeking municipal office was always a no-brainer for endorsements.