Is Team Cote a group of like-minded, independent candidates or an electors’ group tied to the NDP? It depends on who you ask.
Incumbent mayor Jonathan Cote said the six councillor candidates and five school trustee candidates joining him on Team Cote are “like-minded, but independent” candidates who have some shared goals that they want to advance at city council and school board. He said they’re running as independents but will campaign together as Team Cote for the Oct. 20 election.
Team Cote’s council contingent includes incumbents Patrick Johnstone, Jaimie McEvoy, Chuck Puchmayr and Mary Trentadue, and new candidates Nadine Nakagawa and Chinu Das, while its school board slate includes Anita Ansari, Dee Beattie, Gurveen Dhaliwal and Maya Russell, along with incumbent trustee Mark Gifford.
“All of the candidates that are running with the group have been endorsed by New Westminster and District Labour Council. I guess that’s the organizational connection – all the candidates had applied,” he told the Record. “Certainly, the incumbent candidates that I have worked with on city council, I am very happy to continue working with them and continue to have them be on the team. I am looking forward to the new candidates, both on city council and school board, who I think are going to bring some new ideas and fresh perspectives to the group and team and, if successful, can contribute a lot to city council and school board.”
Cote, who is seeking a second term as mayor after serving as a councillor for nine years, said the ability to “work collaboratively as a team of independents” and engage directly with residents has enabled city council to deliver on key priorities for the community.
“I am proud to support this diverse group of progressive community leaders,” said former NDP MLA and MP Dawn Black in a press release. “Team Cote combines accomplished incumbents, each possessing years of local government and school board experience, with highly qualified new candidates to produce a balanced team that will serve our community well.”
In the 2014 civic election, candidates endorsed by the New Westminster and District Labour Council campaigned together, shared office space and teamed up on some advertising.
“Each candidate is running as independents and will have their individual campaigns, but there will be some group materials and group efforts like a campaign office that we are going to share together – very similar to what we did in the last campaign,” Cote said. “I think the only difference is we have kind of branded under a single name. Other than that, it is a very similar campaign structure to how we campaigned during the last municipal election.”
When voters head to the polls this fall, they won’t see the group listed as Team Cote on the ballot.
“We are not an official party. There won’t be any name beside the ballots,” Cote said. “We did feel there was a need, particularly with political parties entering the fray, finding a way for us to find some common branding so people could connect the candidates that we are running with.”
Daniel Fontaine, one of the founders of the New West Progressives electors group, said members of Team Cote are “running under the guise of being independents and they are not.”
“They are all endorsed by the District Labour Council; they are all of the same political party provincially and maybe federally,” he said. “They are essentially an electoral organization – everything they are doing is acting like an electoral organization. To me, if you are going to be open and honest with the public do exactly what we have done – create an electoral organization; tell the public that you are working together as a team.”
Instead of following the New West Progressives’ lead and being open and transparent with the public, by setting up an electoral organization, Fontaine said Team Cote is going to a “hybrid route” – and he understands why. He said Team Cote could see “a huge financial advantage” in terms of fundraising because an individual is able to contribute $1,200 to each member of Team Cote, but can only donate $1,200 to New West Progressives as a whole, as it’s an electors group.
“By doing what they are doing, they are essentially masquerading as an electoral organization, yet financially, because of the way the laws have been changed, they are now able to go and collect vast sums of money that we are not able to do because we are actually open and transparent with the public about this being an electoral organization,” he said. “I have to say that when it walks like a duck, it talks like a duck, it is a duck.”
Cote said his team members have been upfront about the fact they’re working together as a group of candidates and are supporting each other.
“We have never hidden that fact,” he said. “There will be no political party beside our names on the ballots and we are running independent candidates. I think the reality is we are going to be running an extremely grassroots campaign. When the financial disclosure papers come out it will be very clear that there are not significant donors with our campaigns. We have really done a lot of grassroots funding with individuals. The vast majority of my donations are under $200.”
Cote said the group has debated whether it would be better to become more formally organized and form a party but didn’t feel New Westminster has the appetite to move into a more partisan political party structure for municipal politics at this time.
“New West has a long history of having groups of candidates with shared goals work together. I think that system does work well, but having said that, when cities, particularly when they get larger, tend to move toward more organized political parties,” he said. “Whether New Westminster is at that point or not, I think remains to be seen.”
Fontaine gave Team Cote credit for only including five candidates for school board, saying it allowed for a couple of individuals not affiliated with the New Westminster and District Labour Council to get elected to school board. (While an endorsement from the labour council doesn’t guarantee candidates a win on election day it’s proven to be helpful in New West, where the mayor, all six current council members and five of the seven school trustees were endorsed by the labour council.)
“I think that our team, which is very open and very transparent for the public to see, will make a big breakthrough at council and at the school board on Oct. 20,” he said. “I have knocked on now, more than a couple thousand doors, and I tell you the response that we are getting from the public around the opportunity for change – people are looking for new, fresh blood. They do not believe that having everybody affiliated with the same political organization is a good thing.”
While Cote would like to see all members of his team elected to council, he said he’s prepared to work with whomever is elected on Oct. 20.
“To me, Team Cote is something that we are going to use during the election campaign, but, after election day, if I am elected mayor, really my team is the people that the public of New West have elected to city council,” he said. “To me, I think ultimately whatever the public of New Westminster decides, it is incumbent on all members of council and the mayor-elect to be able to work together to best represent the community and to work together collaboratively.”
