by Linda Solomon
Come to think about it, it isn’t really so surprising that the NPA voted out Mayor Sam Sullivan and nominated Peter Ladner as their mayoral candidate yesterday. The NPA simply showed signs of intelligence that would be expected from citizens engaging in the democratic process. Good for them.

You didn’t need to be a visionary to realize that Mayor Sam Sullivan squandered the NPA's political capital and popularity during the perplexing city strike of 2007 that closed down libraries and community centres, and left hundreds of thousands of Vancouverites to manage their own garbage, go without recreation and day care and turned Richmond into middle class Vancouver’s favourite garbage dump. Piles of garbage moldering in the summer heat hit thousands at the most personal level possible and left them wondering how and why it had come to this. It was only natural to look to City Hall and to Mayor Sam Sullivan, who chose to carry on a fight with labour unions at the city's great expense, when he just as well could have managed behind-the-scenes negotiations and led the way to a non-disruptive peace. To those who wanted to think it out a little further, it made sense to look also to the party that had put Sam Sullivan in a leadership position.

So, on Sunday, the NPA membership accomplished what the voters of Vancouver surely would have taken care of in November at the polls. Now, it has happened earlier. The most pressing question this raises is: would a Mayor Ladner provide different leadership? Will voters perceive Ladner as having a distinguishing aesthetic, but a matching philosophy? The spin on Ladner is that he rides a bike, believes in green policies, and comes from the west side of Vancouver, where he has deep roots. Sullivan comes from East Vancouver, became a paraplegic in a ski accident, and does not share Ladner’s background of privilege.

But are these the differences that matter, voters will have to ask themselves.

Much in the same way that American Republican Presidental nominee John McCain carries the epic weight of George Bush’s presidential legacy, Ladner now shoulders the heavy weight of Sullivan’s legacy. Changing faces doesn't change policy, particularly when political parties are behind the faces, parties with strong agendas and ways of looking at the world.

In February of 2008, Charlie Smith, of the Georgia Straight predicted that, even if he got the NPA nomination, Peter Ladner, “will likely never become mayor of Vancouver."

“If I'm wrong,” Smith wrote, “I might have to eat these words on the steps of Vancouver City Hall this November. But the way I see it, Peter Ladner-perhaps the business community's perfect candidate had he put his name forward 20 years ago-has very little chance of becoming the next mayor of Vancouver in 2008, even if he wins the NPA nomination."

Smith goes on to describe why he believes Ladner doesn't connect with many parts of Vancouver's population and why other candidates do. This hits close to home. Mayor Sullivan clearly didn't connect with much of the city's population, as vividly demonstrated during the strike that seemed to go on and on.

"I feel like the city has left me to rot in my own garbage," a bus driver said at the time. His comment was indicative of how people felt about the city's treatment of them a year ago.

If these memories remain in Vancouver's collective mind when voters go to the polls in November, Ladner's new face will probably not be either new enough or convincingly different enough to deliver more years of city leadership to the NPA.