Vancouver 1st was a municipal political party in

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. It supported the mayoral candidacy of Fred Harding, a retired

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, in the 2018 municipal election.

History

Vancouver 1st was founded in mid-2013 by Jesse Johl as a "pro-business, pro-development"

anti-establishment An anti-establishment view or belief is one which stands in opposition to the conventional social, political, and economic principles of a society. The term was first used in the modern sense in 1958, by the British magazine ''New Statesman'' ...

municipal party. None of Vancouver 1st's 13 candidates won in the 2014 municipal election. Fred Harding, Vancouver 1st's mayoral candidate for the 2018 municipal election, received 5,645 votes and placed 6th in the mayoral race. Fred Handing would later become the mayoral candidate for the

Non-Partisan Association The Non-Partisan Association (NPA) is a municipal political party in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It was established by the city's business leaders in 1937 to challenge the democratic socialist Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) ...

for the

2022 Vancouver municipal election The Non-Partisan Association (NPA) is a municipal political party in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It was established by the city's business leaders in 1937 to challenge the democratic socialist Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) ...

, and Vancouver 1st would not participate.

Ideology

Vancouver 1st claims to be a "

big tent A big tent party, or catch-all party, is a term used in reference to a political party's policy of permitting or encouraging a broad spectrum of views among its members. This is in contrast to other kinds of parties, which defend a determined i ...

libertarian Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's e ...

-minded party" that prioritizes residents and taxpayers. The party advocates for lower taxes and small government. Vancouver 1st does not support SOGI 123, a resource package made for teachers and school administrators to help avoid discrimination in their curriculum based on

sexual orientation Sexual orientation is an enduring pattern of romantic or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. These attractions are generall ...

and

gender identity Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the i ...

(SOGI). This caused one of the party's school board candidates, Tony Dong, to quit the party a week before the 2018 municipal election.

Platform

2014

For the 2014 municipal election, Vancouver 1st's party platform included, among other things: * Lowering taxes on homeowners and small businesses * Creating a "public advocate office" and a lobbyist registry * Allowing public access to books held by city hall and giving line by line accounting * Increasing funding for community centres and constructing a seniors centre in every neighbourhood * Providing a thousand more daycare and preschool spaces * Constructing more public playgrounds and revitalizing public pools * Increasing funding for the fire and police departments * Expanding community policing

2018

In October 2018, Vancouver 1st promised to negotiate the return of the Vancouver Grizzlies and construct a "world class"

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stadium in southern Vancouver. The party also promised to get Vancouver a franchise spot in the

MLB Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

and construct an MLB stadium in the same area as the NBA stadium. Additionally, Vancouver 1st said it would reverse a decision made by the provincial government in early 2018 to exclude Vancouver from the

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Electoral results

References

{{Canadian Conservative Parties Municipal political parties in Vancouver Conservative parties in Canada 2013 establishments in British Columbia Political parties established in 2013 2018 disestablishments in British Columbia Political parties disestablished in 2018