Dr. Divyani Singh is the first South Asian City Councilor elected to Vancouver City council with the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE, since Dr. Setty Pendakur was elected as first South Asian city council in 1972. He served one term before returning to teaching. Dr. Singh is climate scientists who has previously run for the Greens federally and provincially.
Pete Fry of mixed Trinidadian, South Asian, Chinese and Scottish heritage has become the first Green Mayor in Canada. He has served to terms and a Green City Councilor.
COPE also elected T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss, an interdisciplinary artist and ethnobotanist, to the Vancouver Park Board. Scott Jensen was the first person indigenous person to be elected to the Vancouver Park Board. He was first elected under the ABC banner and ran as a Vancouver Liberal in this last election. But he lost.
COPE elected long time activist Derrick O’Keefe who is also a member of the Metis Nation.
COPE adopted a policy in 2014 to nominate an indigenous candidate to each to each level of government. While COPE has elected an indigenous person to Vancouver Park Board and Vancouver School Board. They didn’t nominate a indigenous candidate for city council in this election.
Vancouver Liberals were the only civic party committed to equity in this last election. They were committed to restoring the equity office that former mayor Ken Sim scrapped.
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