John Jensen

In the spring most BC municipalities published, on their websites, the campaign finance disclosure documents from the November 2008 elections.   While I glanced at them then, I was always a bit curious and I resolved to take a closer look at those for the North Vancouver City Council when I had a bit of time.  I finally did this week. There are two main types of disclosure documents -- those submitted by the candidates themselves and those prepared by "Campaign Organizers" -- organizations working to influence the outcome of the election.  These are usually one of political parties, trade unions, environmental organizations, corporate groups, etc. There were two such campaign organizers working in North Vancouver -- the Canadian Labour Congress and the BC Branch of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE BC).  Together they supported 250 candidates across the province, spending $153,152 and $69,198 respectively.  For the analysis below I allocated 1/250th of these amounts to each of the candidates they supported in the election. The candidates themselves are required to list all groups or individuals donating over $100, and whether they are from an individual, business, unincorporated organization, non-profit organization, union, or other.  All the contributions listed in the report were either from individuals, business, or trade unions. The overall summary looks like this:

Last Name	Self	Individuals	Companies	Trade Unions	Total
Bookham	$7,461	$1,650			$9,111
Clark	$1,473	$1,425	$350	$2,839	$6,087
Fearnley	$1,564	$1,100	$1,775		$4,439
Heilman	$7,769	$100			$7,869
Heywood	$4,279	$1,700			$5,979
Keating	$1,650	$1,243	$13,550	$6,089	$22,532
Leia	$735	$300	$3,048	$4,839	$8,922
Leonard	$281	$9,965	$1,813		$12,059
MacIntyre	$2,686			$1,589	$4,275
Mussatto	$575	$300	$16,825	$7,339	$25,039
Neilson	$2,741	$600	$500	$2,839	$6,680
Rabbani					$0
Schechter		$3,930	$8,425	$7,339	$19,694
Sostad					$0
Trentadue		$1,535	$2,600	$5,589	$9,724
Vickery					$0
Total	$31,214	$23,848	$48,886	$38,465	$142,413

Altogether nearly $26.00 was spent for every vote cast (5,540) in the election.  Sources from each of the four areas was roughly comparable -- 22% from the candidates themselves, 17% from other individuals, 34% from companies and 27% from trade unions. From the summary it seems there was a continuum, with Joe Heilman and Councillor Bookham largely self-financing their campaigns to Ivan Leonard who had many individual supporters, through to Mayor Mussatto and Cheryl Leia who relied heavily on support from companies and trade unions. This can be visualized with a network graph, produced by a tool called graphviz.  In the (large) diagram below, candidates are marked by rectangles, which are roughly congruent with their total amount of external money raised, companies are circles, trade unions are triangles and individuals are small house shapes.  Thicker lines mean more money than thinner lines.

 

I find these numbers troubling.  I have no problem with organizations being involved and contributing to election campaigns, but not to this extent.   When you only look at candidates who won a seat, 69% of the money raised came from companies and trade unions -- only 11% came from individuals.  The remainder (21%) came from the candidates themselves.  I don't know if this is reflective of candidates' ability or interest in soliciting donations from individuals, or general public apathy, but it's not indicative of a healthy democratic process. More about this later.

Buried in the minutes of the June 22nd City of North Vancouver council meeting minutes was this:

3. Intermunicipal Relations - File: 1205-01

Report: City Manager, June 18, 2009.

PURSUANT to the report of the City Manager, dated June 18, 2009, entitled “Intermunicipal Relations”:

THAT the action taken by the Committee of The Whole in camera this evening regarding “Intermunicipal Relations” be ratified;

AND THAT the wording of the recommendation and the report of the City Manager, dated June 18, 2009, entitled “Intermunicipal Relations”, remain in camera until an agreement has been concluded.

CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY

Councillor Clark brought this up in the last meeting in July, where it became apparent that this was about the Chiba City sister city relationship, whose 40th anniversary was celebrated this month by a visit by Mayor Mussatto and some members of council. I emailed the City Manager, Ken Tollstam, earlier this week whether an agreement has been reached but there hasn't been a response yet.

I was on vacation with the family for the last week, and it seemed that everywhere I went I was presented with visual reminders of the past, present, and future of our society's obsession with globalism and consumption. I spent an afternoon at the Vancouver Art Gallery, where I took in the great Vermeer and Rembrandt Dutch Masters exhibition. The art, particularly the still lifes, is impressive, but just as interesting is the accompanying written commentary. The Dutch "Golden Age", during the late 1600s, was marked by rapidly increasing wealth brought about the country's web of trade links.  The new bourgeoisie sought to flaunt its wealth by sponsoring the visual arts, a wonderful selection of which are presented at the Gallery.  It all was a reminder that Asian trade and globalization is not new and has been at the center of Western, if not world culture, for hundreds of years. For a more contemporary example, just around the corner in the Gallery was Reece Terris' Ought Apartment, a half-dozen mini-apartments all stacked in the building's rotunda. Each apartment is built entirely from reclaimed materials that Terris rescued from the dump. Going through them raises feelings of nostalgia as one remembers familiar colours and objects from the past. That nostalgia, however, is tinged with unease as one recognizes that all the apartments have the same basic functions and that it's not necessary to replace, every decade, the styling of our homes. It's a visceral, personal reminder of our culture of consumption and waste.
Reece Terris' Ought Apartment; image from inklake.wordpress.com
Upstairs at the VAG was a great selection of photographs from famous German photographer Andreas Gursky . Gursky is famous for his large-format photos that bring into stark relief the effects of global capitalism.  Many of them are jaw-droppingly amazing.  Much of it is similar to Canada's own Edvard Burtynsky, who was featured in a great exhibition at the Surrey Arts Centre a few months ago.  (If you haven't seen Burtynsky's film Manufactured Landscapes, check it out)
Andreas Gursky's 99 Cent II Diptychon
My pensiveness and guilt about all this was not helped when, about the same time, I sat down with my kids to watch Pixar's WALL-E.
WALL-E
Those of you who have seen the film will know that it is an entertaining story of a robot trying in his own small way to inadvertently rescue humanity from a gluttonous dystopia.  If Rembrandt and Vermeer captured globalism's past, and Terris, Gursky and Burtynsky are addressing its present, I suppose it is apt to leave it to Pixar to paint its possible future.