Councillor Louie joins field for Vision mayoral nomination

Candidate's bid met with wave of pride from Chinese community

Frances Bula
Vancouver Sun

Vancouver's first Chinese candidate for mayor will be announcing his campaign today, a first step that is generating a wave of pride and hope in the city's Chinese community.

Two-term city councillor, Raymond Louie, the 43-year-old son of immigrants who ran a bakery on Commercial Drive for 25 years, said he is entering the race because he has the experience the city needs as it faces complex problems and he's concerned because there's "a clear lack of leadership" in Vancouver now.

"As a city, we don't have many resources. In the last three years, we have wasted a lot of time and energy," said Louie, talking about Mayor Sam Sullivan's efforts on EcoDensity and Project Civil City, and his efforts to launch a trial of legal drug substitutes for addicts.

Louie would like to see the city focus on how to create affordable housing and how to make the city livable in other ways besides housing -- like better libraries, child care and social services -- for people who choose city life.

Louie, who plan to seek the Vision Vancouver nomination, has a raft of supporters from the Chinese community, who see his candidacy as a sign that Vancouver has taken a big step forward.

"We would be so proud to have a Chinese mayor. We are looking forward to it. They have a Chinese mayor in Victoria, why not here?" said Douglas Soo of the Chinese Benevolent Association.

Eddie Chan, an officer with several associations connected to the Chinese province that Louie's family is from, said he's supporting him not just because he's a good friend and incredibly hard-working but because he has spoken out in a way other Chinese councillors haven't.

While Louie's political opponents often find him hectoring and detail-obsessed, that's not how Chan sees it.

"He's not scared. He's brave. He can stand up in council and say what he wants, not like the others who were quiet."

The Chinese vote is crucial in Vancouver.

In the last election, an exit-poll analysis done by Simon Fraser University Prof. Kennedy Stewart estimated that 11,000 of the 17,000 Chinese people who voted in the election supported NPA Mayor Sam Sullivan.

Sullivan won by only 4,000 votes over Vision Vancouver candidate Jim Green.

There have been several Chinese councillors over the years, but no mayoral contenders.

Bill Yee, a lawyer who sat as an independent and ally of then-mayor Mike Harcourt in the 1980s, was sometimes touted as a possibility but he left politics after two terms as councillor.

Louie's announcement makes him the third in the competition for the mayoral nomination with Vision Vancouver, the new party created after Louie, former mayor Larry Campbell and others left the longstanding left-wing Coalition of Progressive Electors.

NDP MLA Gregor Robertson announced two weeks ago that he is competing for the nomination.

Park board commissioner Allan De Genova, who ran with the opposing Non-Partisan Association for most of his two-decade political career, told reporters last month he is running and is organizing a formal launch for next week.

That competition is also a first for the left. Until this election, there has never been a competition for the mayoral spot. Those who ran for COPE in the past 40 years were usually seen as sacrificial lambs who put their names forward for the good of the party's profile.

Campbell swept in as COPE's first mayor after the party convinced his two potential challengers, Jim Green and David Cadman, to step aside.

And when the newly formed Vision ran in 2005, there was another tacit agreement in the party to have Green run as the mayoral candidate. COPE did not run a candidate for mayor.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008