VOTE FOR WARDS THIS SATURDAY!

Hopefully all of you who live in Vancouver are aware of the upcoming referendum on changing our city government to a ward-based system. It's a rare and historic opportunity to make a real difference in how we're represented at City Hall. Please make sure you're in on the decision.

(You can find your nearest polling station by using the interactive map located on the City of Vancouver website.)

In our current "at-large" system, everyone in the city votes for all the city councillors on one ballot. There are some serious drawbacks to this system:

• No councillor speaks for the interests of any one community.
• More affluent neighbourhoods have an undue influence on the outcome - something that helped keep the Non-Partisan Association (NPA) in power for so long.
• It's prohibitively expensive for independents (unaffiliated with one of the major civic parties) to run a campaign since it must be city-wide, not local to their own neighbourhood.
• Voters are faced with a huge slate of candidates, and so they tend to resort to party affiliation in making their decision, not any specific knowledge of the candidates.

Under wards, all of that will change. You'll choose a representative for your ward who knows what issues are important to you and your community. You'll have a local voice at City Hall. Council will represent the votes of the entire city, instead of being skewed to the preferences of a few affluent areas.

Wards aren't perfect - no system is. But the main arguments of ward opponents just don't hold water. They compare the increased cost of a ward system to Toronto - but salaries for their councillors are much higher than ours (and there are no plans to raise them to match). And much of the cost is one-time-only, not ongoing.

They also say that wards pit neighbourhood against neighbourhood. That's just not the experience of the majority of cities with wards. Councillors represent their ward, but - like the people they represent - they also want to do what's good for the city as a whole.

Wards will make City Hall more accessible and more accountable. The NPA and their allies are fighting this hard, because if wards win on Saturday, it will be a deathblow to their style of big money politics. I urge you to get out and vote on Saturday. This is a decision that will directly affect YOU for years to come, so be sure to express your opinion!

For more information:

www.yesforwards.ca
(778) 889-3248