VANCOUVER— Adriane Carr, Vancouver’s only Green city councillor, has decided she won’t take the risk of running for mayor.

Carr said that after months of speaking to Vancouverites, other parties as well as her own, she’s determined she won’t take the chance of losing her council seat by seeking the mayoralty.

“The mayor’s spot is a first-past-the-post race, and the more crowded the field, the slimmer the chances,” Carr told StarMetro in a phone interview prior to announcing her decision to Green party members on June 8.

Carr was initially buoyed by poll results that showed she was the most popular choice for mayor.

Vision Vancouver’s decision to run a mayoral candidate was a key factor in Carr’s decision. The centre-left party has held power on city council for a decade, but Vision has struggled recently and earlier in the spring the party was ambivalent about whether it would hold a mayoral nomination process.

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That has now changed: the party acclaimed Ian Campbell, a hereditary chief of the Squamish Nation, as their mayoral candidate on June 7. He ran unopposed after his only competitor, Taleeb Noormohamed, dropped out of the race because of health concerns.

Several independents are also running for mayor, hoping to gain the support of several left or centre-left parties. Those candidates include Kennedy Stewart, NDP MP for Burnaby South, and Shauna Sylvester, executive director of Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Dialogue.

Carr had mulled running for mayor and seeking support from Vision Vancouver, the Coalition of Progressive Electors and OneCity as a “unity” candidate for progressives.

“What people said to me was, you’d make the best mayor but I’m so afraid you’ll lose and we can’t afford to lose your voice on council,” Carr said.

In an October 2017 byelection, left-leaning votes were split between independent candidate Jean Swanson, the Greens, Onecity and Vision, with Vision’s candidate coming in fifth place. Hector Bremner, a candidate with the centre-right NPA, won the byelection.

In an attempt to avoid a similar result in the upcoming civic election, the progressive parties have either signed or will soon sign an agreement brokered by the Vancouver District Labour Council.

According to that agreement, OneCity will run two council candidates and three school board candidates; the Greens will run three candidates for school, three for council and three for parks board; and COPE will run two candidates each for council, school board and park board. Vision has agreed to run five candidates for council, three for school board and two for the park board.

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Carr said it looks like Vision Vancouver and the NPA will once again dominate Vancouver’s election, and said she didn’t think she could compete against the two parties. She added that Kennedy Stewart, a former NDP MP who will be able to rely on that party’s resources, is also a formidable opponent.

“Even though this election will be different because of the new (stricter) donation rules,” Carr said, “I still think those parties have election machines that are very powerful.”

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