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Analysis: Vision Vancouver: the new civic Liberal Party?

The Vision Vancouver pipeline is complete. What’s that, you say, they’re anti-pipeline? That only counts for the one Kinder Morgan wants to twin.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, seen here in Vancouver during the fall election campaign, has increasingly strong ties with Vancouver’s ruling civic party. Photo Dan Toulgoet

The Vision Vancouver pipeline is complete.

What’s that, you say, they’re anti-pipeline?

That only counts for the one Kinder Morgan wants to twin. But the ruling civic party now has a figurative pipeline running from 12th and Cambie all the way to Parliament Hill, with a spur to the headquarters of the Liberal Party of Canada.

First went Brittney Kerr, the Earnscliffe lobbyist and Vision board member, in December to handle Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s B.C. desk. Then Vision digital strategist Diamond Isinger became a special assistant to International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland. Now Mayor Gregor Robertson’s press secretary Braeden Caley, the president of the federal Liberals’ B.C. wing, said he was going to work at HQ the week after he shot down the latest rumour that Robertson may be in line for a diplomatic post in Beijing.

Vision formed in 2004 as a splinter of the NDP-allied COPE, but the mayor’s office acted as a Liberal satellite last fall. The public saw the Sept. 10 images of Trudeau outside the civic engineering office, promising billions for transit building. But there was a lot more going on behind the scenes.

Two days before that photo op, chief of staff Mike Magee had one of several phone calls with Trudeau’s right-hand-man Gerald Butts after city hall’s Federal Election Strategy committee met. Yes, there was such a committee, but the Freedom of Information office was silent about whether minutes or handwritten notes actually exist for Sept. 8 or Sept. 18. It said it had no records from Magee’s meetings throughout the fall with federal Liberal-allied spin doctors Don Guy and Don Millar, backroom veterans instrumental in Vision and BC Liberal election wins.

Robertson used visits to the United Nations in September and the White House in October to heighten his profile and take subtle jabs at the ruling Conservatives via foreign media. The day after Stephen Harper got the boot, Robertson’s agenda shows a phone call with newly elected Toronto Liberal MP Adam Vaughan. A formal call with Trudeau came Oct. 26.

Magee and Caley went to Ottawa for the Nov. 4 swearing-in ceremony and party. Two weeks later, Robertson was in the capital to meet cabinet ministers and prepare for his junket to the United Nations climate change summit in Paris. Robertson even hosted a reception at a joint called the Moscow Tea Room.

Magee’s post-Paris agenda shows he scored an invite to the Liberal Christmas party on Dec. 15 at the Belmont Bar, two days before the Dec. 17 “Selfie Summit.” Robertson welcomed Trudeau to city hall where they shook hands and posed for photos but didn’t announce anything new.

They were mugging for the cameras again earlier this month. Robertson went to Ottawa with a not-yet-approved-by-city council offer of $250 million in civic land seeking $500 million in federal tax dollars to pay Vision-allied developers to build subsidized housing.

That would be the manifestation of the corporate management team’s three-hour Oct. 29 meeting to create a wish list for the next four years.

Documents that the FOI office did release show acting city manager Sadhu Johnston gave senior bureaucrats a copy of the Liberal platform’s 101 promises. Highlighted in red were the 46 that fit with Vision, like subsidized housing, transit expansion and marijuana legalization.

The ones left in black were those that Vision is not so keen on, whether in Ottawa or Vancouver, like giving more power to watchdogs, closing political financing loopholes and strengthening citizens’ access to information.

bob@bobmackin.ca

@bobmackin