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12th and Cambie: To Yee or not to Yee

Self-described NPA mayoral hopeful has big, big plans

Its January, right?

January 2013?

OK, good.

Thought Id missed a whole year there and was suddenly plunked into 2014 and writing speculative stories about which candidates would line up to run for mayor in the civic election.

I got to thinking this way after coming across a website featuring Scott Yee.

Who is Scott Yee?

The name rang a bell.

A quick search of my vast election files revealed that Yee ran as an independent mayoral candidate in the 2008 election. Depending on your definition of success, Yees fifth place finish with 942 votes could either be described as encouraging or just plain awful.

Ahem, the guy who won Gregor Robertson collected more than 66,000 votes. Environmentalist Betty Krawczyk and the self-described Prince of Pot, Marc Emery, even fared better than Yee.

I know, I know, no independent candidates can get elected in this city unless they decide to join a deep-pocketed civic party such as Vision Vancouver or the NPA.

Heck, even COPE gets a good chunk of money from its union brothers to run respectable campaigns.

So maybe Yee is listening.

Check out what hes saying on his website.

If I win the NPA nomination and defeat Gregor Robertson.

Yes, you heard that right the NPA nomination.

In fact, Yee says more clearly in the description on his Twitter page that he will be seeking an NPA nomination, which means his candidacy has to first be approved by the NPAs candidate selection committee before entering the partys race.

At the writing of this, I left a phone message for NPA prez Peter Armstrong to get a better handle on whether the party had spoken to Yee and were serious about entertaining this political aspirant. Didnt hear back before deadline.

Anyway, the NPA might want to think hard about considering Yee since he isnt fully committed to the civic scene. The guy has bigger ambitions than serving as mayor.

Back to that sentence he started on his website:

If I win the NPA nomination and defeat Gregor Robertson, I plan on only serving one term as mayor of Vancouver, as I wish to become the next secretary-general of the United Nations in January 2017

Move over Ban Ki-moon.

and if was to become the next secretary-general, it means I either step down before the end of my term, try to do both jobs, or the deputy secretary-general would have to run the day-to-day operations at the UN until October.

Not only could that be a problem for the NPA having their mayor desert them after one term but Yee is calling for the NPA to run a coordinated campaign with the Vancouver Greens in the 2014 election.

He believes running seven NPA candidates for council along with three Greens would do the trick. He, of course, would be the mayoral candidate.

Yee says not only will the NPA not be able to sweep city hall, but a coalition with the Green Party will help rebuild the NPAs perception as an old, angry white political party.

Wonder what he thinks about the UN.

mhowell@vancourier.com

twitter.com/Howellings