The Green Party’s Adriane Carr says she is “seriously considering” resigning in January as a Vancouver city councillor.
The veteran civic politician cited two main reasons for looking to call it quits: her frustrations with Mayor Ken Sim and his ABC Vancouver majority, and wanting to spend more time with her family.
“I am not saying it is absolutely for sure,” she told reporters Thursday from her city hall office. “I want to take a bit of time over the Christmas holidays to talk to my family and just talk more broadly with other people. I don't intend to stop being active on issues. I just feel frustrated at how much I feel I can accomplish right now under this council.”
The timing to consider such a bold move halfway through her term is also a factor in her decision, she acknowledged, noting a byelection will be called in the new year to replace the vacant seat left by OneCity’s Christine Boyle.
Boyle was recently elected the NDP MLA for Vancouver-Little Mountain and is now Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation. She is still technically a councillor but expected to formally resign Dec. 12.
That resignation would then trigger council at its first meeting in the new year — Jan. 21 — to appoint a chief election officer for a byelection. The chief election officer must set a general voting day no later than 80 days after their appointment, which would set up a vote sometime in the spring.
Carr said the byelection presents an opportune time to leave city hall and have the Greens run a candidate who would become a fresh voice for the party. The party is meeting with OneCity to consider running one candidate each, so not to diminish the chances of both parties electing new councillors.
Stripped of Metro Vancouver role
All of this depends on Carr’s decision, which will be clarified at the Jan. 21 council meeting.
She elaborated on her reasons for leaving, listing off a series of complaints against ABC Vancouver, which holds eight of the 11 seats on council.
Carr was recently removed by the ABC majority as a Metro Vancouver board director. She and Green colleague Pete Fry were also stripped of duties such as deputy mayor, acting mayor and duty councillor.
Carr said she was also disappointed to be removed as council’s representative on the board of the Zero Emissions Innovation Centre, an independent non-profit and charitable organization and member of the Low Carbon Cities Canada network.
ABC Vancouver’s move not to support her “sue Big Oil” motion that would see Vancouver taxpayers contribute one penny each to fight oil companies and voting against the city’s Climate Justice Charter were other frustrations Carr cited.
As recently as Wednesday, the ABC majority voted against her motion titled, “Ensuring councillors’ motions maintain public confidence in the good rule of the city.”
“I think that this particular ABC party is not engaged in good governance — I think there's a lot of backroom dealings that happen,” she said, citing the recent unsuccessful move by Sim and some of the ABC councillors to reverse the city’s ban on natural gas for heating and hot water in new homes.
Co-founder Green Party of BC
Carr, 72, has never not known politics in her adult life, having been a co-founder with her husband Paul George of the Green Party of BC in 1983. She was the party’s leader from 2000 to 2006 and in 2001 became North America’s first Green Party leader to be included in a televised leaders’ debate.
Though she served as leader, she was never elected to the B.C. legislature.
In fact, she had run several times at different levels of government to get elected, but failed until squeaking out a 90-vote victory in the 2011 Vancouver civic election. She became the city’s first Green councillor.
Carr raised her profile during her first term at city hall, topping the polls in the 2014 and 2018 elections. At one point in 2018, she was strongly considering a run for mayor after polling showed she would be a favoured choice by many voters.
Vancouver has never had a woman as mayor, and Carr confirmed Thursday that she has no interest in pursuing the job at a future date.
“I heavily weighed it before and 2018 would have been the opportune time,” she said. “I wasn't prepared at that time to take that on. I really also believe that running for mayor, you need resources — big time. The Green Party, we've always won our elections on the meagerest of resources. So, it just wasn't the right time.”
During Thursday’s interview, she emphasized the importance of spending more time with her husband, children and three grandchildren. Carr said she and her husband, who founded the Wilderness Committee, want to complete some “passion projects,” including writing a history of the couple’s activities within the Green Party.
Byelection cost $2 million
In what could be one of her last council motions, Carr hopes to get ABC Vancouver’s support in December to have city staff explore creating a carbon offset program with Vancouver International Airport.
Her motion stems from when she was with Metro Vancouver and did some international travel on behalf of the climate action committee.
“I tried to offset my flights, and I couldn't find one offset project that was anywhere near the Lower Mainland,” she said.
“The closest was the Great Bear Rainforest or the Nanaimo landfill capturing gas there. And I thought, ‘Wow, there's all these YVR passengers who probably would love to offset their air travel that would help projects within this region.’”
City staff say the byelection is estimated to cost $2 million, approximately $500,000 more than Vancouver’s last byelection in 2017. The NPA’s Hector Bremner won that byelection after former Vision Vancouver councillor Geoff Meggs resigned in July of that year to take a job as chief of staff to then-premier John Horgan.
Only 11 per cent of eligible voters turned out for that byelection.
