VANCOUVER—Vancouver councillor Adriane Carr plans to announce whether or not she’ll run for mayor on May 7 or 8, after setting a deadline of May 4 to Vancouver’s other progressive parties to decide whether or not to support her.

Carr, the only sitting Green Party councillor, has the support of her own party but has been carefully weighing the decision for several months, because she could risk losing her council seat if she miscalculates.

Other parties say they are continuing to weigh various options: Vision Vancouver is considering running their own mayoral candidate, said Michael Haack, co-chair of the party. OneCity is seriously considering supporting Carr.

“We are considering her request, because we think based on the polling that’s come out and based on her electoral record, she’s probably the most electable of the folks who have stepped forward,” said Alison Atkinson, who sits on the executive of OneCity.

OneCity also wants to hear more from other mayoral candidates before making a decision, Atkinson said. Shauna Sylvester, an independent mayoral candidate, has also said she hopes to unite the parties.

As the parties mull a “unity” mayoral candidate, they’re also planning to hold a policy conference open to the public on May 4 and 5, followed by meetings with the four parties, including the Coalition of Progressive Electors, moderated by the Vancouver District Labour Council.

If they can’t find a way to work together, the risks are high for the left: a split vote could result in a win for the right-leaning Non-Partisan Association. That was the result in a by-election last October, when the NPA’s Hector Bremner won with 13,372 votes, compared to the combined 20,022 votes for the next two top vote-getters, independent Jean Swanson and the Green Party’s Pete Fry.

But it seems the parties have different ideas about what the May 6 meetings will deliver. The VDLC is an umbrella group for labour unions — including members who work for the City of Vancouver — that has done similar mediations in the past for Vancouver’s left-wing civic parties.

“We’re going to, we hope, come out with an agreement about the number of candidates to run across council, school board and parks,” said OneCity’s Atkinson. “We’re feeling committed to that process.”

Carr said the Greens will not be participating in any formal deal-making, and she said that includes an agreement about how many candidates each party will run for council, park board and school board.

“We believe that our role in attending that meeting is to basically convince VDLC to support a slate of Green candidates,” Carr said. “It is not a negotiation with other parties, it is not behind closed doors.”

Vision doesn’t expect to see formal deal-making until late summer or early fall, Haack said.

Stephen Von Sychowski, president of the VDLC, said the parties have already been talking with each other, but his group will move them “towards more of a formal discussion involving all of them together at the same time, starting early in May and going throughout May until we reach some form of agreement.”

Jean Swanson, an anti-poverty activist who ran as an independent in the by-election, told StarMetro a member of her campaign will attend the meetings but she wasn’t sure yet what their participation would be. Swanson has not formally committed to run again.

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COPE did not return StarMetro’s request for comment by press time.

Jen St. Denis is a Vancouver-based reporter covering affordability and city hall. Follow her on Twitter: @jenstden

Correction — Apr. 28, 2018: This article was updated from a previous version that mistakenly said mayoral candidate in the headline.

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