I’m new to municipal politics. A few years ago, I would have dismissed it as a bunch of upper-middle-class people arguing about zoning variances and dog poop. And anyone that has attended a council meeting can tell you that there’s plenty of that. However, municipalities do have a lot of power to shape our communities. They have a significant amount of authority on a broad range of issues. Conservatives and business people have certainly figured this out. That’s why they’re so involved with municipal politics: it helps them increase profits, get deals done, and make sure their interests are served. This should matter to lefty radicals, progressives, feminists, anarchists and others: there’s no point in dismissing municipal politics as too bureaucratic, or hierarchical, or conservative, or whatever. It is all of these things, but that’s not a reason to ignore it. So what does it mean to engage with municipal politics as a radical? What are the different ways radicals might engage, affirm, relate, oppose, infiltrate, sabotage, and transform municipal politics?
This year, I’m trying to learn more about municipal politics (and urban politics more generally). I don’t have a lot of knowledge or answers; I just think it’s an important place to experiment. What follows is some ideas and questions about what it might mean for radicals to engage in municipal politics.
I’m going to vote in the upcoming election on Nov 19th. And you should too (gasp!) Not because you are a good citizen and it’s your duty or some crap like that, but because you understand that municipal politics matters whether you like it or not, and (I’m assuming) if you’re reading this, you have some radical political views and you’re not OK with the status quo. More on that later–I’ll tell you who I’m voting for too, and why. But this isn’t a simple call to vote–it’s a call to think about municipal politics more generally, and the multiple ways radicals can engage these processes.
For instance, the recent Juan de Fuca controversy (where a developer wanted to pave over acres of forest in order to build a bunch of vacation cabins) would never have happened in the first place without the approval of the municipality and the CRD. And it would never have been stopped without the work of activists (and councillors) fighting against it in, through, against, and outside city councils, the Capital Regional District, and the Band Council system.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying radical activists should stop the awesome grassroots, non-hierarchical stuff they’re doing (like the Peoples Assembly of Victoria) and get involved in municipal politics instead. That would be a disaster. What I am saying is that the more we know and understand municipal politics, the more options and tactics become available. What I’m asking is this: how can radicals engage with municipal politics in multiple, overlapping, and maybe even contradictory ways? Is it possible to be flexible enough to work within bureaucracies at some times, and challenge their legitimacy and get in their way at others?
Participating in municipal politics is not going to lead to some revolution or massive transformative change–not in Victoria, anyway. It’s not a vehicle for creating horizontal relationships or unlearning oppressive behaviours. Victoria–and increasingly all municipalities in North America–remains caught in a neoliberal race to the bottom with other municipalities: fighting to encourage more crappy tourism, more horrible development, more of the same. A municipal election is not going to change this. But it could create way more breathing space for alternatives to corporate capitalism. It could help alleviate some of the worst excesses of surveillance, policing, sprawl, and corporatization. And I don’t think we’ll get co-opted just by showing up to vote, or by campaigning in elections, or by participating in institutionalized, bureaucratic politics in other ways. The more we understand municipal politics (and the severe limitations of them), the more we can start to engage with them pragmatically.
So what does this ‘pragmatic engagement’ look like? Well, I dunno exactly, and that’s for you to decide, but to start with, I’d suggest that you consider voting in the upcoming municipal election on Nov 19th. I have never urged people to vote before, and it still feels icky. But there are good reasons! You can vote for up to 8; I’m only voting for 4: Ben Isitt, Lisa Helps, Rose Henry, and Philippe Lucas. There are probably other decent candidates too; I’m just pretty confident that these folks in particular would be useful allies to a lot of ongoing struggles in Victoria.
- Philippe Lucas (an incumbent) has been a constant voice against the gentrification of Pandora Green and the need for a fixed-site needle exchange. He’s also been working lots on encouraging local food and farmers’ markets.
- Lisa Helps started a micro-credit lending scheme that provides loans to people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to get one from the banks. This creates possibilities for incomes that aren’t reliant on corporations and big business.
- Ben Isitt has done tons of work on affordable housing in Victoria. He’s also an academic with a wicked analysis that he makes accessible, rather than dumbing it down.
- Rose Henry has done loads of grassroots work on homelessness and she’s the only candidate I’ve ever heard talk about (and work on) colonialism and decolonization for more than a few seconds.
Don’t live in Victoria? Well, other municipalities like Saanich, Central Saanich, Langford, etc are arguably just as important–sometimes more so. There are lots of politicos, I’m sure, who can tell you the ins and outs of Victoria municipal elections: strategic voting, political influence, who has the best chance of being elected, blah blah blah. My main reason for voting at all is that these elections are often decided by a margin of 100 votes, so voting actually means something. Plus there aren’t hundreds of seats like the federal election, so it actually matters who gets elected where you live (sorry Elizabeth May). It matters because crappy stripmalls, condos, and tourist traps all depend on the support of City council, and if the municipality had different priorities, things would be a little less destructive and messed up.
There are also ways to affect municipal politics beyond the election cycle.
Here’s one example to consider: a new ‘Consensus Statement on Victoria’s Economic Development Strategy‘ has just been released by a loose network of policymakers, activists, politicians and other people in Victoria. It talks about the need to support local businesses (rather than large corporations) and focus on projects that nurture community resilience and sustainability.
Many radicals will be ambivalent or outright hostile to this consensus statement: it leaves out any analysis or mention of colonialism, racism, patriarchy, or private property, and the way those processes reinforce economic inequality, big business, and unsustainable ways of life. But there’s a difference between dismissal and engaging this effort strategically or critically. The statement is interesting because it’s tuned to municipal politics in Victoria. Based on who votes right now, no candidate is going to get elected on an anti-capitalist platform. The City also depends on businesses and property owners for its revenue. But an anti-corporate, community economics platform could help drive a wedge into municipal debates, where politicians actually have to start making choices between supporting corporations or supporting small businesses and local, community-based economic policy. It could generate conversations and get people thinking critically about jobs, development, and investment. Most of the time, municipal politicians just insist they like all business, big and small, and they pretend that corporations aren’t actively destroying alternatives.
Another example beyond election cycles: Neighbourhood Associations often have a lot of sway in determining Official Community Plans, rezoning, and bylaws, which has huge impacts for construction, policing, surveillance, taxation, social programs, and community events. Neighbourhood Associations (and city councillors) claim to represent their whole neighbourhood, so you’re being spoken for, whether you like it or not. For example, Neighbourhood Associations were key players in the gentrification of Pandora Green. They have a lot of authority, and radicals can engage with this authority in multiple ways.
Anyways, municipal politics is not going to stop being bureaucratic, hierarchical, or business-friendly anytime soon in Victoria. It tends to be dominated by older, white, policy-minded people. There are lots of paradoxes and traps around co-optation, assimilation, and deradicalization. But refusing to participate on principle is also a trap, I think. It’s a conservative reaction to a messed-up system, rather than a creative engagement with it. What that creative engagement means is an open-ended puzzle, and it will depend on who you are, what struggles you’re involved in, and what your objectives are. But that puzzle is complex. I think it’s worth thinking about and messing around with.
Many Politics 
Thanks for the interesting article, Nick! I agree, we need to be having exactly these kinds of dialogues more, and developing new, creative, innovative, radical actions out of them.
I’d like to share some thoughts in solidarity with the spirit of your intent (and of course, I’m one of the writers of that Consensus Statement you refer to).
I found your observations particularly interesting because I’ve been asking myself, where’s the Occupy Victoria movement on this Consensus Statement? I honestly thought it was a slam-dunk that would excite everyone involved and we’d get that same 1200 or more who signed up on Facebook and/or showed up to demonstrate to sign this document right away, as a natural way to extend that same revolutionary intent into another sphere. So far, not so!
Maybe they just haven’t seen it yet. Or maybe your observations as to why they haven’t signed up in droves are correct. But I would argue that this document, if read appropriately, is overflowing with ideas which would affect, to use your words, “colonialism, racism, patriarchy, or private property, and the way those processes reinforce economic inequality, big business, and unsustainable ways of life”. What else is urban farming right now in this area but a voluntary turning over of private property to use in the public commons? What is creating an entirely new exchange system if not an attempt to re-shape and re-democratize the powers of colonialism, so embedded in the colonialist financial system we’ve inherited? And where else can any of these deep prejudices you (rightly) draw attention to truly be attacked and undermined, except ultimately in our individual lives, in our interpersonal relationships, and in our neighbourhoods and communities, by attempting to focus on fundamentally and creatively and collectively re-designing the ways we relate socially and economically? That’s what the document is about for me; it’s reminding us that, you know what, you’re not a slave to the global corporate machine. In fact, that machine could collapse at any time now and we could all be suddenly FORCED TO LIVE WITHOUT IT (now there’s a radical notion), and if you’re already exploring, learning, building and exerting your community power, your community will be all the more ready to start exploring new ways of living if/when that happens. If not, what other forces normally step into and take control during environmental and financial catastrophes? (Ask Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine.) Yes, there are systemic national and global forces that make our fight harder and which we shouldn’t forget, but that doesn’t change the locus of where the real solutions ultimately have to occur any different.
Finally, I just want to offer up another thought about why I’m personally turning more to local community engagement of this kind. Don’t get me wrong, like you, I’ve seen the effectiveness of strikes, demonstrations and civil disobedience and all that stuff, so I’m not downgrading it at all. Yet in fact, those are already fundamentally localized actions, aren’t they? Chain yourself to a tree. Gather in the town square. That’s why they’re so effective (and also fought against). They are “in your face”. But in additon, personally, a lot of times, I find many such actions just, well, uncreative, hackneyed, boring and ineffective, too. Like it was really so grand and radical to march down Douglas chanting “our street!”?? I was there, I did it, but you know what? Snooooooooze. Come on, can’t we come up with anything better than that? So that’s part of the reason I’m trying to throw more ideas into the mix. And why I appreciate you raising these questions. For me, it’s not really about the election. It’s about the radicalism we are trying to bring into our daily lives, and showing our neighbours, you know what, just as it’s always been, true radicalism is radical love.
Rob Wipond