Pete Fry

For Vancouver

Tag: POLITICS

  • Video: I’ll fight to protect our communities, homes and jobs

    I’m running to be your city councillor, because when I talk to Vancouverites, they tell me they are frustrated – they feel like the city is failing them. Failing them on housing. Failing them on homelessness. People feel that there’s special treatment for a special group of developers; that too many decisions get made behind closed doors. Public trust is broken.

    I got my start advocating for our communities here in the East End, but I’m running to be a City Councillor for all Vancouver: from the Punjabi Market to the West End, from Dunbar to the Drive, from South Hill to Southlands — as your City Councillor, I’ll put public interest first.

  • Video: A New Fair Deal on Housing, and Five Quick Start Actions to Help Us Get There

    I released a new video today, describing our Green Party goal for a new deal on housing, and announcing five bold quick start actions the City could immediately pursue to ease Vancouver’s housing crisis. We need to shift development in Vancouver. As a city, we must ensure that we are building more housing that’s affordable for local people instead of for the luxury market and speculators.


    Ultimately this means using the city’s power over land use decisions to prioritize purpose-built rental on City and public lands that is truly affordable to local incomes; and on private lands increasing the amount of developer cost levies and contributions to support affordable housing or extracting publicly owned housing outright. 

    But while other parties continue to call for solutions that ultimately require the support of senior government to change tenancy laws, property taxation or invest in public housing. We’ll advocate to senior government for those kinds of actions, but we need to get started right here and right now in our city with things we can actually do. These Five quick start actions the city can do immediately will help get us there and address the urgency of our housing crisis: 

    1. Change city by-laws to make affordable mean affordable: fixing housing prices to local incomes, not market rates.

    Adriane Carr put forward a motion to fix the City’s definition of “affordable housing” to local incomes, but to get it seconded it was weakened to only require only a staff report, not the actual change. With another Green on City Council, we can second this motion and introduce it for public debate under its original intent.

    2. Call for a one-year moratorium on demolition of purpose-built rental housing, and strengthen the Tenant Relocation and Protection Guidelines.

    During the moratorium the city will work on a plan to both retain and restore older affordable apartment buildings as well as build and maintain new purpose-built rental through funding that Greens have been pushing for including re-instating federal tax incentives and creating a new Vancouver Carbon Trust. Update the Tenant Relocation and Protection by-law to ensure landlords aren’t using loopholes to renovict and displace tenants and that residential tenancies are protected city-wide. 


    3. Protect and increase secondary and basement suites by making it easy to legalize them.

    Protect neighbourhoods and affordability while giving new life to old buildings. Secondary and basement suites make up some of Vancouver’s most affordable rental housing. Amend the Secondary Suite Program to encourage secondary suites as incentives for retaining character homes, as opposed to multi-conversion dwelling process typically done by developers under the current framework.

    4. Launch a city-wide plan to involve citizens in deciding how to add density, affordability and “missing middle” housing into their neighbourhoods.


    Planning by spot rezoning and density bonusing instead of a city-wide plan has driven speculation and skyrocketing increases in land prices. Why is Vision so opposed to a city-wide plan? Working collaboratively with communities and neighbours to create a city-wide plan is the only process by which residents can come together on decisions that affect growth, housing and affordability city-wide and in their own neighbourhood. 


    5. Create a Renter’s Office at the City, to better protect and resource the over half Vancouverites who rent their homes.

    Immediately create a department that can provide resources and support for the renters of Vancouver: to provide help with provincial tenancy laws, to ensure homes are safe and landlords adhere to our Standards of Maintenance bylaw, to stop bogus renovictions and to ensure renter’s rights are protected in an increasingly tight and exploitive market.

    Postscript: 

    I’m running to be the Green Party’s second City Councillor. I need your vote, to elect me to join Green Party City Councillor Adriane Carr in this October 14th by-election. Another Green would significantly broaden the ability to introduce and debate new policies, whereas today Carr must rely on conditional support of other parties’ councillors to second her motions, which often involves watering down the motion.

  • Will voters elect Green Party’s Pete Fry to Vancouver City Council?

    Will voters elect Green Party’s Pete Fry to Vancouver City Council?

    The by-election race for Vancouver’s vacant City Council seat is the Greens’ to lose. And lose they may to the Non-Partisan Association or Vision Vancouver, despite both being well back in the poll.

    NPA support is composed largely of older voters who are more likely to cast a ballot. Vision is well known for its organized get-out-the-vote volunteers, a consistent advantage for the governing party over several election cycles. Either party, currently vying for second place, could upset a race that today favours the Greens’ Pete Fry.

    Currently 38% of decided voters tell us they would support the Green Party, up from 30% in July when the party had yet to name candidate Pete Fry. NPA, whose support has softened over the past month, and Vision now compete for second place (21% and 19%). Support for OneCity, who announced their candidate Judy Graves prior to our July poll, has fallen dramatically (to 5%).

    Currently, over half of Vancouverites (52%) are undecided or will not vote in the upcoming by-election. Even so, our poll’s 48% undoubtedly overstates expected voter turnout. Just 43% who were eligible voted in Vancouver’s 2014 municipal election. Fewer still turned out in 2011 (35%). Turnout to municipal by-elections, such as the October 14th’s council and school board vote, is even lower.

    The by-election race for Vancouver’s vacant City Council seat is the Greens’ to lose. And lose they may to the Non-Partisan Association or Vision Vancouver, despite both being well back in the poll.

    NPA support is composed largely of older voters who are more likely to cast a ballot. Vision is well known for its organized get-out-the-vote volunteers, a consistent advantage for the governing party over several election cycles. Either party, currently vying for second place, could upset a race that today favours the Greens’ Pete Fry.

    Currently 38% of decided voters tell us they would support the Green Party, up from 30% in July when the party had yet to name candidate Pete Fry. NPA, whose support has softened over the past month, and Vision now compete for second place (21% and 19%). Support for OneCity, who announced their candidate Judy Graves prior to our July poll, has fallen dramatically (to 5%).

    Currently, over half of Vancouverites (52%) are undecided or will not vote in the upcoming by-election. Even so, our poll’s 48% undoubtedly overstates expected voter turnout. Just 43% who were eligible voted in Vancouver’s 2014 municipal election. Fewer still turned out in 2011 (35%). Turnout to municipal by-elections, such as the October 14th’s council and school board vote, is even lower.
    The largest group in our poll tell us they don’t know how their neighbours will vote (64%). But among those with an opinion, we glean some insight about how socially entrenched party support may be.

    Half (50%) of NPA supporters believe their neighbours will also support the NPA.
    Just one-third (34%) of Green supporters believe their neighbours will also vote Green.
    Just over one-third (37%) of Vision supporters believe their neighbours will also vote Vision.

    Data table; http://www.justasonmi.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/COV-BYELETION-AUG-2…

    http://www.justasonmi.com/?p=5391

  • Why I’m running for City Council

    Why I’m running for City Council

    The following was my speech to the Vancouver Greens, accepting my nomination to run in the October 14 by-election.

    Thanks everyone. Even though I’m being acclaimed tonight, I don’t take this nomination for granted. Thank you for your faith and confidence in me, and in the Green Party of Vancouver.

    I’m proud to stand alongside our Green city councillor Adriane Carr, and Green park board commissioners Stuart Mackinnon and Michael Wiebe, and of course, you the members of the Green Party of Vancouver. 

    When I first ran for city council with the Greens back in 2014, it was because I saw our city was heading in the wrong direction. 

    Vancouver was sacrificing community for commodity, our citizens were disengaged from the city building process, friends and family were simply giving up and leaving town. 

    The issues then: housing affordability, income disparity, the Downtown Eastside, homelessness, communities under threat, red tape and de-spirited micro-managed staff, short term rentals, bogus planning processes —and of course, that soft spot for corruption: the overt financial influence that the real estate industry has over the two big developer parties that run our city. 

    What are aspirations like “Greenest City” when homes are being lost to luxury property investments, and the people who work here are forced to commute from farther and farther afield?
     
    That was 2014, yet here we are today, with pretty much the exact same issues. 

    In fact, most of our problems here in Vancouver are worse today than they were in 2014.

    Vision Vancouver have been running our city like a clique. Talk to community advocates, city staff, and even developers and you’ll hear a common refrain: if you’re not in you’re out. Are we going to continue to allow a city where influence supersedes public engagement ?

    And it’s not like we’ll be any better off with the NPA. They are still beholden to the same developer interests and the same toxic partisanship.

    No, we can do better. In fact we (The Greens) are doing better. 

    Adriane Carr got the most votes of any council candidate in 2014 and has a reputation as the one councillor who actually takes the time to really listen to the citizens who take the time to speak before council. 

    Adriane has been alone on council pushing for resolutions on issues like whistle blower protection, social housing targets that are tied to actual income, transparency around public benefits and so much more. But she’s just one Green on council. 

    Adriane has been doing a great job on council, but she’s on her own. 
    There’s a lot she can do, a lot WE can do with one more Green on council. 

    She needs my help. She needs our help.  

    It’s time to send a message to Vision and the people who seek to commodify our city.
    It’s time for a new deal on housing.
    It’s time to make people our priority.
    It’s time for integrity and fairness and cleaning up city hall.
    It’s time for a city wide plan and a smart green city.
    It’s time to build a better city together, a fair and equitable city where everybody can thrive

    There’s plenty of work to be done over the next two months and we will need your help.

    With your help we can win this by-election, and with your help we can build real momentum for a winning campaign going into next year’s 2018 general election.

    Thank you 

  • By-election to fill council seat vacated by Geoff Meggs could leave lasting mark on Vancouver politics

    By-election to fill council seat vacated by Geoff Meggs could leave lasting mark on Vancouver politics

    Could Green party activist Pete Fry be Vancouver’s next city councillor?

    Normally, municipal by-elections for council seats are not a big deal, especially when one party will retain power regardless of the outcome.

    But the resignation of Vision Vancouver councillor Geoff Meggs creates some intriguing possibilities.

    City clerk Janice MacKenzie has confirmed that there will be a by-election. Expect four civic parties—Vision Vancouver, the NPA, the Vancouver Greens, and the Coalition of Progressive Electors—to field candidates.

    The outcome could have a big impact on the 2018 campaign.

    Let’s say the NPA runs a high-profile candidate like former attorney general Suzanne Anton. She’s a favourite of many in the party. But were she to lose badly, it would harm the chances of the NPA picking up traction—and donations—in advance of the next election in 2018.

    An NPA loss may confirm the party’s status as Vancouver’s equivalent of the provincial Socreds: out of touch with a damaged brand.

    Vision Vancouver is desperately in need of younger politicians after its next-gen candidates were defeated in 2014. But should the party run someone younger—such as Vision Vancouver executive director Stepan Vdovine or mayoral assistant Naveen Girn—and that person were to lose, it would leave the ruling gang looking pretty stale going into the next campaign.

    The Greens could be the big winner if they run someone who wins. In the last election, their council vote split between Pete Fry and Cleta Brown, leaving them with just one making it into the top 10: Adriane Carr. This time, the party has an excellent chance of getting a second member elected to the chamber.

    That, in turn, would boost momentum going toward the 2018 election.

    COPE has been in shambles for a few years, so it would be a miracle if it won a by-election. But you never know what might happen, given the rising anti-elitism and overall frustration about high housing prices. A strong candidate like Lisa Barrett could pull off an upset in a four-way race.

    I’m going to go out on a limb today and make a prediction that Vancouver’s next councillor will be…Pete Fry. But I’ll add this: I won’t be terribly surprised if I’m wrong, given the number of people who will be vying for the seat.

    Keep an eye on this one. It’s going to be fun.

    https://www.straight.com/news/932636/election-fill-council-seat-vacated-…