Gregor, Gregor, Gregor…we really want to vote for you, but you’re making it damn hard.
Robertson’s Vancouver mayoral campaign needs a platform, it needs an issue, maybe two, that defines his candidacy and tells us who he is and what he would do and how he would be different from Peter Ladner. His missteps, although minor in essence, expose a deeply concerning lack of focus and conviction. First, he floats the idea – one largely regarded as legally impossible – to force landlords to rent out vacant strata condo units to help house the homeless, then flip flops when it becomes apparent the concept isn’t feasible.
Which brings us to the 2-fare SkyTrain boner Robertson pulled this week: Robertson received a $173 ticket for mistakenly buying an inadequate fare ticket and, when it became public, announced he was outraged at the amount he called an affront to the poor and vowed he would be taking the matter to court in December to bring attention to the injustice. Immediately, critics pounced on the story, charging Robertson was only making fighting the ticket a political issue because he was caught with an unpaid fine. For several days, his campaign veered dangerously off-track and the debate raged over whether he should have just paid the fine and moved on. It appeared Robertson’s campaign was so lacking a foundation that he tossed this line out in the water to see if maybe this could or would be the soapbox he’d been searching for.
Enter someone with some PR or political savvy to inject some sense into Robertson’s floundering run for mayor and the befuddled candidate paid the fine, decided against the court fight, apologized and cited the need to move on. Could Gregor not have worked this all out in his own head when he got the ticket – the receipt of which is not, as many seem wont to suggest, some sort of indication of low moral substance or underlying criminality on par with, say, giving an addict money to buy drugs and driving them to do it? Come on, people.
He has also come out with several half-baked ideas intended to solve homelessness and other local problems, but can’t give specifics on the cost and how the city would fund them – an ominous thread that seems to run through his presentation of new initiatives each time he raises one. Vancouver taxpayers still remembering the long garbage strike of 2007 and recent tax hikes wonder how the City will fund Robertson’s plans if he doesn’t even know – this does not exactly inspire the voters’ confidence when choosing a new mayor. We want to elect the good-looking, bike-riding, soccer-playing, business-building, socially-progressive, stick-up-for-Cambie-Street father of four, but is he up for the job?
Remember the Federal Election? Substitute “Anyone But Harper” for “Anyone But Ladner” and you sum up the feeling of many Vancouverites uneasy with the idea of electing a candidate who supported the vast majority of soon-to-be-sunset-riding Mayor Sam Sullivan’s wide-ranging and often bizarre initiatives, but only long enough to put himself in position to stab Sullivan in the back and deep six any future in politics (we hope). One can argue we don’t know or haven’t seen who Ladner is, either – is he the conservative, BC Liberal-linked, Olympic bedfellow, Machiavellian Sullivan-ite or the new and improved politico willing to revisit the Burrard Street bike lanes and achieve a homelessness solution that is respectful and supportive to all stakeholders? We just don’t know. All we do know is Ladner has proposed a tax freeze and many voters vote with their wallets, often to their detriment.
Gregor, here’s some advice: you will win if you get on Ladner about his knowledge of the City’s Property Endowment Fund and the use of that money to prop up the floundering Olympic Village project without public knowledge. Ask how this got approved and what likely scapegoat and fall girl Estelle Lo’s resignation means. Stay off TransLink or you’ll have the likes of venomous bullies such as Porvincial Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon on your back, making sure you don’t step on his carefully guarded turf. You obviously struck a nerve with him, but leave that dragon to sleep for now.
Use the gift you’ve been given today because we really want to vote for you.
November 6, 2008 at 11:20 am
I’m personally waiting for a solid connection between an unpaid fine and qualification for the seat of mayor, other than it supposedly being some magic window into his soul. I mean, is anyone else sick to death of obsessive scare-mongering being made over trivial incidents like this and taking the place of discussion about actual policy positions and actual issues facing the city?
Maybe it’s the hangover from hearing so much vitriol from the McCain campaign, but today I had to drop a facebook friend who was constantly pushing out links about the translink ticket, complete with Falcon’s embarrassingly childish smear comments.
I’m personally disgusted with the politics of smearing and the replacement of substantial discussion with juicy gossip. What next? Ladner didn’t pick up after his dog? Sullivan got mistreated by people over the crack-van incident, and I thought that was unfair and a warning to all who run for public office never to try being compassionate in the moment. Now we have Robertson’s transit fare fine, which isn’t in the same vein but has the same lack of substantial connection to the duties of mayor. But it is the same kind of politics to try and use anything and everything as a smearing paintbrush, and I’m sick of it.
November 6, 2008 at 2:23 pm
The way Frances Bula put it, Gregor’s excuse did sound a bit like something a 9-year-old would make up on the fly. But the Vision press release kind of makes sense of Gregor’s side of things. If he filed the court paperwork 17 months ago, there’s some hard evidence for you.
It isn’t great that Robertson never (apparently) complained about Translink fines before this incident, but it’s perfectly understandable. If you pop-quizzed any other BC politicians on fine rates, how many do you think would know, off the bat, how high they are?
OK, issue finished. I should have made this post about homelessness or something substantive. D’oh!
November 19, 2008 at 4:04 pm
I’m glad Robertson won after all. The issue of the Translink fine was ridiculous and embarrassing for everyone involved, particularly the vitriolic commentors on various online news articles who were all so intent on using that one infraction to jump down Robertson’s throat on being an irresponsible citizen. What kind of city do we live in where hundreds of its citizens (and even the ones in power, K-Fal) are so eager to march in lockstep with the ‘rules’ that they throw immediate (and awkwardly misplaced) anger on someone who hasn’t yet paid an overpriced SkyTrain ticket, or all small things?
This kind of disturbing deference was played out to a larger scale with the Olympic Village fiasco. Those in favour of letting the suits take care of the deal in confidence to the end presented an interesting test to the public, unfairly asking them to choose between public discourse and the authority of people who are said to know better when people in authority and members of the public are, well, the same guy.