Mayor boycotts developers’ breakfast
Event sponsored by major NPA supporter
In the first significant public appearance of mayoral candidates in the Vancouver election, in which affordable housing was on the agenda, Vision Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson was a no- show.
But if Tuesday’s breakfast panel session organized by the Urban Development Institute was supposed to inform its members about the election, most developers were noshows as well.
The event, held in the tony and high- ceilinged Pacific Ballroom at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, with room for several hundred people, was billed as an opportunity to hear the city’s major mayoral candidates debate how they would create housing affordable in Vancouver’s hyper- tight market. But with Robertson boycotting the UDI over a perceived event sponsorship by an enemy, many of the developers who would pay to listen to him and who donate generously to his party stayed away as well.
Just 70 people bought tickets for the UDI breakfast, and some did not even show up. Only 60 or so people, including several media, attended the event, and about a third of those were supporters of the three candidates who took the stage, or civic election candidates themselves.
Originally billed as a panel discussion between mayoral candidates Kirk LaPointe of the Non- Partisan Association, Meena Wong of the Coalition of Progressive Electors and Robertson, it changed to a candidates’ meeting with the addition of Green party council candidate Adriane Carr.
Robertson’s handlers refused to agree in part because it was to have been sponsored by developer Rob Macdonald, a former NPA vice- president who had publicly smeared the mayor over his marital breakdown. Macdonald had also donated $ 960,000 to the NPA in the 2011 election, making it the single- largest political donation in Canadian municipal history.
Anne McMullin, the executive director of the UDI’s Pacific Region, said her organization pulled Macdonald’s sponsorship of the debate in an effort to encourage Robertson to attend. He still refused. She said the mayor has not addressed the UDI since 2009.
McMullin downplayed the poor attendance, saying her members tend to skip political events. But it was clear from the ostentatious venue that the UDI had hoped the panel discussion on affordable housing would be well attended by those now doing business with the Vision- controlled city.