Mayor Gregor Robertson announcing in January that he will not seek a fourth term as mayor. Photo Dan Toulgoet
If you were cruising CBC today you'll have read that "Vision Vancouver won't run a mayoral candidate in fall election".
Similarly, the Vancouver Sun told readers "Vision Vancouver not running a candidate for mayor in 2018 election".
CTV was a bit more cautious in saying "Vision Vancouver may not run mayoral candidate in next election".
The confusion came from Vision Vancouver sending out a press release this morning saying that "At this time, Vision is not formally opening a nomination process for the mayoral race" and "we’re creating an opportunity to collaborate with other parties for an independent or partisan mayoral candidate to seek the support of our members”.
You'd be correct in thinking that sounds a lot like they're not running a mayoral candidate and are creating an opportunity to collaborate with another party or an independent candidate. However the press release that followed was a "clarification" stating that "Some news media outlets have arrived at the conclusion from our wording in the release that Vision Vancouver has decided not to run a mayoral candidate, full stop. This is not the case." (the bolding was theirs).
So as it turns out, they're waiting until April 16th for people to throw their hats in the ring and put in their bids to run for mayor under the Vision banner. They'll decide at that time if they'll be running a candidate of their own, or supporting another party's candidate, or an independent.
If that sounds a lot like they're going to see what type of high profile mayoral candidates they can attract then decide if they can win the election with them, then you're hearing the same message I am.
My money is on Vision taking a mayoral time-out this October. I imagine they'll allow some time for the next mayor's honeymoon to wear off, then hurl her shortcomings at her in a comeback attempt in the following election cycle. I guess we'll see come mid-April.
