May 1 - 20, 2018
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NPA rejects Hector Bremner’s bid for party’s
Vancouver mayoral nomination
The Non Partisan Association’s
(NPA) was rocked with controversy
when it rejected high-profile
mayoral candidate Hector Bremner.
The party’s decision, say some of
its observers, shows the lack of
transparency, and is “stuck in an
old ‘backroom’ boys mentality” as
well as an anti-immigrant bias.
Bremner, who is very much
visible with his Let’s Fix Housing
initiative and is the party’s
frontrunner, said he was approved by
the party’s Green Light Committee
but unexpectedly blocked from
running for mayor under its banner
by the party board. His supporters
suggested the racial identity of
his supporters may have hurt his
bid. NPA president Gregory Baker
told media earlier this week that
the Green Light Comm ittee had
“serious concerns” with Bremner
and so the board decided not to
approve his application.
“We had statements made to us
when we started signing up more
people,” said Bremner, referring
to a membership drive that he
said added more than 2,000 party
members.
“When you sign up 100 white
people at a church, that doesn’t
seem questionable, but when you
have 100 non-Anglicized names,
that is questionable,” said Bremner,
whose wife is Filipina and who
signed up many immigrants to the
party and their cause.
While he said the comments
against immigrants were not openly
made, it was covert in many ways,
such as the time they talked about
foreign buyers. “It’s all in code but
we all know what they mean,” he
said, adding he was “astonished”
by what he heard.
Bremner said he would
welcome the reasons for rejection
being made public because he has
nothing to hide. “Put out whatever
you want, I have no secrets,” he
said. “I don’t want to hear about
these sort of vague insinuations
… some vague, super-secret
concerns.”
He said politics “shouldn’t be
done by some backroom decision.
The candidates should be voted on
by the members and by the public.
The star chamber, big-donor era is
over.”
The NPA’s rejection of Bremner
as its mayoral candidate this week
appears to have hurt the party and
may have opened the door to more
threats to his unity. His rejection by
the party’s board became all the
more intriguing because he was
heading polls with his involvement
in many issues that matter to
vancouverites.
Only three names made it past
the NPA board: party member and
Park Board Commissioner John
Coupar, political newcomer Ken
Sim, and Glen Chernen, who ran
for mayor with the Cedar Party in a
previous election.
Bremner has claimed to
have signed up more than 2,000
members. Chernen, who ran for
the mayor’s office with the Cedar
Party in the last election, also
claims to have signed up a large
number of supporters, but did not
have an exact number.
Mario Canseco, who is with
Research Co., said his numbers
suggested Bremner had more
name recognition than Coupar,
Chernen or Sim, and that it was
WWW.PHILIPPINEASIANNEWSTODAY.COM
strange how a party can reject a
candidate who has already made
a name for himself and made his
party recognizable.
Adrian Crook was among
those who were seeking an NPA
nomination for a council seat,
but has said that because of the
board’s “decidedly undemocratic
rejection” of Bremner’s candidacy,
he said he would no longer seek the
party’s nomination for councillor.
He said he was still very much
interested in running for a council
seat, but said he was not yet ready
to say whether that would be as an
independent or otherwise.
The NPA’s green light committee
consists of Joe Sebestyen, David
Mawhinney, Eli Konorti, Paul
Barbeau, and Gill Winckler, with Ray
Young as an alternate. Its directors
of the board are Robert Boyd,
Johnny Cheung, Erin Chutter, Lou
Cruz, Federico Fuocco, Michael
Lount, Wes Mussio, Franco Peta,
Krissy Van Loon, Sarah Weddell,
Natasha Westover and Terry Yung,
according to their website.