Civic Election

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Civic Election

On November 16, 2002, many British Columbians will head to the voting

booth for the civic election. The question is, whom will they vote

for? Will it be Larry Campbell, the leader of the Coalition of

Progressive Electors (COPE)? Valerie Maclean, leader of the Vancouver

Civic Action TEAM (VCA)? Or Jennifer Clarke, leader of the

Non-Partisan Association (NPA)?

Conservative Larry Campbell will this year lead a party whose focus is

environmental issues. Campbell, along with his party would like to

develop Vancouver's economy, reduce energy consumption, and address

climate change. His plan is to create a so-called "Cool Vancouver", in

which jobs will be created and civic investment through construction

and other projects that save energy will use environmentally friendly

technology. This would involve investing in energy saving technology

in new buildings and "retrofits", where this technology will be

installed in older buildings. He hopes that this program will create

jobs, save tax dollars, reduce municipal costs, and attract senior

government funds while conserving energy. If elected mayor, Campbell

states that "I want to make sure that what we do is going to come back

as a benefit that we can measure and see". He also said that he would

like to "bring the downtown eastside community into the mainstream" by

implementing the four-pillars program which is aimed at alleviating

addiction woes to the Downtown Eastside.

The second candidate for mayor of Vancouver is Valerie Maclean, leader

of the VCA TEAM. She believes that Vancouver needs to be a vibrant

"community of communities" with greater ambition, and it needs to seek

international recognition. Maclean hopes that the Olympics will be

part of the stimulating economy, because the economic spin-offs could

be huge. Maclean also believes that Vancouver needs to take greater

advantage of the potential tourist dollars that could be spent here.

"Tourism is huge in this city, but look at some of the cultural

activities that have been underplayed" as stated by Maclean recently.

According to her, the city is not taking advantage of people arriving

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