Who will carry Vision’s torch?

We discussed Ian Campbell’s decision not to continue his bid for mayor of Vancouver in our last live show and since then speculation has been rampant.

There are rumours Vision Vancouver might be scrambling to get a new mayoral candidate by tomorrow’s nomination deadline or that the board may opt to throw its support behind one of the independent candidates for mayor, namely Kennedy Stewart or Shauna Sylvester.

At last night’s Housing Policy Forum, I got a chance to ask Vision council candidate Diego Cardona for his reaction to Chief Campbell’s decision and I asked Shauna Sylvester whether she’d accept the support of Vision or if she was actively seeking it out.

Unsurprisingly, both were cagey on what’s coming next.

Nevertheless, rumours continue to swirl. Andrea Reimer‘s name was on everyone’s lips last night as people are speculating whether she will take a pass on her new role at Harvard to come back to local politics and run as the mayoral candidate for Vision Vancouver.

Complicating the issue is that outgoing Vision councillors Kerry Jang and Tim Stevenson have thrown their support behind Kennedy Stewart.

Reimer, who was a guest on our first live show, would definitely enter the race as a front-runner, although that would mean further dividing the progressive vote.

We should know later today or tomorrow what Vision’s ultimate plans are.

Finally, our interview with Ian Campbell is available for Patrons. Since he’s no longer running, we won’t be releasing a public cut but I think there was still a lot of interesting content in there, particularly as we spoke to him only days after the Federal Court of Appeal ruling quashing the approval of the expansion of the TransMountain pipeline.