For a couple of weeks now, the most intriguing political rumour locally was that Jody Wilson-Raybould was being encouraged to run for the Vancouver mayoralty and was taking the idea seriously.
Her announcement Thursday that she will not run federally lends some credence – but by no means confirmation – that her options include entering the 2022 race to run the city. In statements on paper and on the air, she isn’t ruling it out.
Hers would be a popular candidacy, no question. A chart I saw today suggests she would instantly be the most serious challenger to incumbent Kennedy Stewart, and two political strategists I know from conservative and progressive camps indicate she would find organizational and financial support without much stress.
Until she speaks out on what matters to the city, it would also be a puzzling candidacy, because the former federal justice minister who left the Liberals to successfully run independently in Vancouver-Granville in 2019 hasn’t a significant track record on civic issues.
Her unquestioned credibility on Indigenous issues isn’t the most direct priority on the municipal agenda of the next number of years, although reconciliation will intersect our systems and the position itself has a prominence few other options avail.
In a city of increasing inequality, however, her perspective on social justice would have more authority than any others in the race. It would be interesting to hear her ideas for the seemingly intractable crisis in the Downtown Eastside, for example.
As mayor, she would be a formidable advocate across the table from federal and provincial governments – although that first meeting with the prime minister would be quite the event. Stewart may profess to know how Ottawa works, but he was a rookie backbench MP in a third party, not a frontbench cabinet minister in government as she was.
She would also be – and this is not at all a slight – symbolically important at this stage in history for a city that often thinks of itself symbolically, progressively, even radically.
The job may be subsumed in the weeds of arcane bylaws and committee minutiae, and the municipal party system can propel partisanship where it doesn’t belong. But a more careful reading of the Vancouver Charter permits a more ceremonial, hierarchical positioning than recent occupants have pursued.
Which is to say, she or anyone else could redefine the job and how it allots attention.
Wilson-Raybould’s five-page message to her constituents Thursday was an indictment of the federal political system that ultimately sidetracked her. She will be best remembered for refusing under formidable political pressure as justice minister to halt the criminal prosecution of SNC Lavalin when it sought a remediation agreement.
In the end, the carnage was widespread: the prime minister’s chief of staff and the clerk of the privy council left, the venerable company dissembled, and Wilson-Raybould (and then the health minister, Jane Philpott) resigned their posts and caucus memberships. Justin Trudeau definitely didn’t emerge unscathed, either.
Wilson-Raybould wrote that “a regression” had unfolded in a Parliament “more and more toxic and ineffective.”
She concludes: “Federal politics is, in my view, increasingly a disgraceful triumph of harmful partisanship over substantive action.”
And: “I am leaving to carry on this work in different venues.”
Asked today if that meant the mayoralty, she said: “I love this city. I am thinking about the opportunities that I have.
“Many people have asked me,” she said, but added: “I haven’t considered running for the mayor of Vancouver necessarily.”
In political code, that’s not a no, closer to a yes, and closest of all to a not-ready-to-run-just-yet.
The federal election call is coming most likely in mid-August for a vote in the second half of September. MPs are signalling pretty much every hour if they’re stepping down.
Wilson-Raybould’s most recent publicity came last week when the minister for Indigenous issues, Carolyn Bennett, sent a one-word text back when Wilson-Raybould pressed Trudeau for action on reconciliation instead of pre-election posturing.
“Pension?” Bennett wrote, touching off accusations of racial stereotyping, her apology for letting “personal dynamics” intervene, and the prime minister’s reproach to a minister who was exactly the wrong person to be engendering controversy at this moment.
Yes, it’s true, the large cohort of newly elected 2015 MPs stand to gain access to a lovely gift for life if they hold office in late October 2021. That six-year requirement can be fulfilled because this is a minority government with no threat of imminent defeat.
But just as John Horgan professed difficulty in governing in a minority and posed all sorts of phantom menaces to manufacture the need for an election, Trudeau is mustering the same script.
What he has told his caucus, however, is that they can get stuffed if they think he’ll wait for the six-year reward to take effect. The last thing he needs is an election issue to arouse public cynicism about self-interest. He told his MPs that if they want those pensions, get out and win their ridings.
As of Thursday, there is one more in Vancouver-Granville that can be won and an incumbent with options in politics and in boardrooms that few can match. Her decisions await.
Kirk LaPointe is publisher and editor-in-chief of Business in Vancouver and vice-president, editorial, of Glacier Media.
