The New West Progressives are hoping to capitalize on what they believe is a desire for change on the city’s governing bodies.
The electors group, which ran a slate of candidates for city council and school board in the 2018 civic election, is gearing up for the Oct. 15, 2022 election. While it expects to announce its entire team of candidates in May, it may announce some even sooner.
“Some of them are chomping at the bit to get going,” said Daniel Fontaine, president of the New West Progressives.
Fontaine said some folks have already submitted their paperwork to run, but the NWP is still actively looking for candidates.
The New West Progressives didn’t have a lot of time to organize before the 2018 election, but Fontaine said they’ve been meeting almost monthly ever since.
“I think in the second go-around, just based on the level of interest on things like fundraisers and candidates and email inquiries and website hits, all the things that are happening, we are going into this election much stronger than we did in the last one,” he said. “I think we are going to do much better. We almost elected two people to school board.”
In the 2018 election, candidates running as part of Team Cote, all of whom were endorsed by the New Westminster and District Labour Council, won the mayor’s seat, all six councillor seats and five of seven seats on the school board (an independent and a New West Progressive – Danielle Connolly – were elected to school board.)
“It’s definitely a mood of change,” Fontaine said. “I think that we haven’t seen that in a long time. But it’s not atypical when a government has been in power as long as this one has and a political group has been in charge as long as they have. The pendulum swings, and people do look for new faces and for change.”
In 2018, a New West Progressives candidate placed eighth in the school board race. It’s candidates also claimed the seventh through tenth spots on city council.
Fontaine said he’s sensing a lot of frustration in the community around issues such as closure of the Canada Games Pool, public safety in the downtown, and rising property taxes.
Not the only slate in town
Earlier this month, a new party called Together New West formed, with Mayor Jonathan Cote and school board chair Gurveen Dhaliwal being among those involved. (Dhaliwal previously told the Record the New Westminster and District Labour Council had been a stakeholder in the development of the party but it will be do its own independent endorsement process, as it does in each election.)
The party got off to a rocky start with its name selection, as the Downtown New Westminster Business Improvement Association had previously launched a Together New West campaign in 2020 and opposed the party’s use of that name. Last week, the BIA expressed concern after the party declined to change its name and it stated it was exploring all possible options, including legal, to determine next steps.
“We have the city effectively fighting our own business community,” Fontaine said. “It’s just a total mess. I don’t know how else to describe it.”
Fontaine said he was disturbed by the fact that the group offered no apology or acknowledgment about the impacts its chosen name could have on the Downtown New West BIA, aside from Cote. (Last week, Cote took to social media to apologize to the BIA and to express disappointment that the party executive had decided not to work with BIA to fully address the legitimate concerns they have raised.)
“Something that should have been as basic as a Google search or a walk through downtown New West to understand that they were taking intellectual property of an organization who has been hit hard by COVID,” Fontaine said. “Anyone with a simple bit of research could have figured out that they were stepping on something that they shouldn’t have.”
Instead of acknowledging their mistake, pulling back and rethinking their name, Fontaine said Together New West doubled down and said it wouldn’t change its name. He said there’s a name that’s available for the new party, and it’s one that acknowledges its connections to labour organizations.
“They are on a slate with the district labour council’s support. You don’t get on that slate unless you have support from the district labour council, and everybody in the city knows that,” he said. “So just be clean, come out and be honest with voters. Call yourself what you are and nobody else, nobody else is going to take that name.”
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