Elect Tim Louis to City Council

This year, Vancouver heads to the polls to choose the type of Vancouver they want to see going forward into the future.

At the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE), we've been listening to Vancouverites from across our city, so we know that in the next term of City Council, the citizens of Vancouver want to see aggressive action on affordable housing, support for neighbourhoods, and a respectful dialogue with City Hall where our voices are not only heard, but where those voices influence the decision-making at City Hall that will shape our City for generations to come.

On the one hand, the electorate are given the choice of voting for COPE, a Vancouver civic party founded in 1968 that has long stood for social justice, with a longheld commitment to championing the issues of public transit and investment in affordable housing. On the other hand there's the NPA, and their woeful record on shutting down public celebrations, and ignoring our responsibility to the environment.

In 2011, COPE offers an approach to city governance that will help to shape a city for all the citizens of Vancouver. This election, COPE has spoken out on ...

• Putting neighbourhoods first through the creation of Neighbourhood Councils

• Support for the creation of year-round farmers' markets

• Affordable transportation, through the creation of a neighbourhood-based, discount-priced Community Pass, or C-Pass, as well as improved bus service and the freezing of fares, among a myriad of other issues that make up our platform.

For 40+ years, COPE has advocated for ordinary working people and families, those on fixed income, renters and home-owners, small and sustainable business, and the neighbourhoods and communities that make up the cultural diversity that is Vancouver. While Vancouver is one of the most beautiful cities on the planet, it is also Canada's ground-zero for homelessness and poverty. COPE has real solutions to the issues that impact you and people like you all over Vancouver everyday.

Without you, without your vote for the COPE team on Saturday, November 19th, we cannot achieve our goal of achieving a more sustainable, neighbourhood-oriented City committed to social justice, and the building of a Vancouver that reflects the values of working people across our city.

Today, we ask for your support on November 19th. COPE asks that you send a strong message to City Hall that you believe in building a Vancouver for Everyone.

Affordable and social housing and an improved transportation system, specifically bus transit service, have emerged as key issues in Vancouver's 2011 civic election.

The Coalition of Progressive Electors' (COPE) recently released platform document concentrates on the programmes Vancouver City Council must implement to provide much needed new, affordable and social housing stock, and a much-improved, more accessible transit system to serve the needs of Vancouver residents.

In attendance at the West End Resident Association's All-Candidates debate held on Sunday, November 13th, COPE candidate for Vancouver City Council, Tim Louis, offered prescriptive remedy for increased social and affordable housing supply, and given that Sunday's WERA debate concentrated on West End issues, laid out a plan that would provide free transit service in the downtown core, and the West End.

In addition to free transit in the downtown core, Tim Louis and the COPE candidates for Vancouver City Council have also argued for the adoption of a Community Pass, or C-Pass system, whereby any given neighbourhood across the city could decide as a group whether they wanted to invest in a discounted transit pass for their community, an initiative not unlike the successful U-Pass transit pass offered to students attending post-secondary institutions across the Lower Mainland.

On the housing front, Tim Louis and COPE call for the re-adoption of an affordable housing strategy that was long a feature of Vancouver's affordable housing policy ...

"We need to do more to set aside city land for co-ops and non-market housing. With every major development that comes before Council, it must be an absolute minimum requirement that 20% of the units are set aside social housing, as was long the practice of Vancouver city government."

COPE and the Tim Louis campaign ask that you have a look at the video atop today's post to our website, and on November 19th, cast your ballot for the COPE Vancouver City Council team of candidates: Ellen Woodsworth, RJ Aquino and Tim Louis.