As readers of this newspaper know, The VOICE over the past decade has been the leading proponent - and a very vociferous one - of a ward system for Vancouver and Surrey in order to have true democracy and proper representation for visible minorities.
However, with the whites controlling the levers of power, the ward system has been sabotaged left, right and centre because the present at-large system favours the whites.
The shameful reality is that in a multicultural city like Surrey - where the 2001 census showed that 37 per cent of the population consisted of visible minorities and where that population is now supposed to be over 50 per cent - there is only ONE visible minority councillor; the other seven are all white.
The school trustees in Surrey are ALL WHITE!
Great democracy, eh!
Vancouver is slightly better - where the 2001 census showed that 49 per cent of the population consisted of visible minorities - with three visibile minority councillors; the other seven being white.
Three of the nine school trustees in Vancouver were visible minorities.
Keep in mind that this is now 2007 and the visible minority populations in Surrey (especially Indo-Canadians) and in Vancouver (especially Chinese Canadians) are much larger.
So why do I now advocate the at-large system?
A couple of weeks ago, I came across a very interesting article in the highly respected Economist magazine of London (August 4-10 issue) on race relations in the United States, entitled, "Where black and brown collide." It was a powerful analysis about the clash for power between blacks and Latinos - though the same models can be used in the white versus visible minorities power struggle scenario in Vancouver metro area.
For example, the article noted: "In Compton, an independent city in south Los Angeles, Latinos are now 58 per cent of the population - and rising quickly. Yet the mayor and all the members of the council are black."
So what is the problem here?
The article quotes a local pastor: "They got here first, took over from the whites, and now it's difficult for them to let go."
That is precisely the problem here, too. The whites, so comfortably ensconced in power for well over a century, just do not want to hand over power to the non-whites. Why, even the Vancouver Sun that once advocated the ward system for Vancouver when the whites were in a solid majority, suddenly changed its tune in 2004 just because the visible minorities were now seen as a threat to white power!
Back to the Economist, the article noted: "Sensing the tsunami of Latino political power, Compton's mayor has begun to cultivate Hispanics. IT MAY BE TOO LATE. In the next-door city of Lynwood, Hispanics were largely kept out of power UNTIL THEY BECAME A MAJORITY. After seizing control of the city council in 1997 they DEMOLISHED the black political machine." (Capitalization mine.)
So do you get the point, readers?
Now the whites may suddenly start offering a ward system to protect their own interests - and WE MUST SAY 'NO' TO IT!
Just be patient and in the meantime, get better organized. There are, for example, still too many visible minorities who have not applied for their citizenship although they have spent the requisite number of years here.
It's as the Economist article noted about the Latinos in the U.S.: "Thanks partly to their youth and partly to the fact that MANY ARE NOT CITIZENS, Latinos are not nearly as powerful as their numbers might suggest." (Capitalization mine.)
WHITE HYPOCRISY
Back in October of 2004, I wrote the following in an article entitled, "Former Vancouver mayor Philip Owen said WARD SYSTEM IS GOOD":
Charlie Smith, well-known reporter of the highly popular Vancouver newspaper, Georgia Straight, last week exposed former Vancouver mayor Philip Owen, who is now one of those against a ward system for Vancouver.
In the 1984 civic election, when Owen lost to a COPE candidate by only 229 votes, he told the Vancouver Sun he didn't have any "big hangups" about a ward system. This was the second straight time that he had failed to get elected to the 10-member Vancouver City Council by coming 11th.
An apparently frustrated Owen told the Vancouver Sun that he would probably have been on Council if there had been a ward system.
Owen came up with other excuses, too, in his obvious bitterness: he claimed that Gordon Campbell - yes, the same guy who is now the Premier - had beaten him because Gordon shared the same last name as former mayor Tom Campbell and Kim Campbell, who was then a school trustee - yes, that's the same person who later became the Prime Minister.
That's called NAME RECOGNITION which gives such well-known people an UNFAIR ADVANTAGE over others who may be more competent.
Owen told the Vancouver Sun at the time: "You get back to this at-large system where you're totally into a name identification system." And as Charlie Smith reported, Owen added that under the at-large system, "all the incumbents get in", making it more difficult for newcomers.
That Vancouver Sun article pointed out that Owen, who was just starting out as a politician, opposed the at-large system and had told people that A WARD SYSTEM WOULD MAKE IT EASIER FOR CANDIDATES TO MEET VOTERS.
But NOW, this same man is a member of the Knowards Coalition (www.knowards.ca/), which is telling Vancouverites NOT to vote for a ward system!
Interestingly, in that same 1984 article, the then-mayor Mike Harcourt - yes, that's the same person who later became the Premier - was quoted as saying that it was a "disgrace" that voters in the at-large system must go through dozens of names to pick candidates for city council, the school board, and the park board to vote.
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