Government and politics of Vancouver

Vancouver, unlike other British Columbia municipalities, is incorporated under a unique provincial statute, the Vancouver Charter. The legislation, passed in 1953, supersedes the Vancouver Incorporation Act, 1921 and grants the city more and different powers than other communities possess under BC's Municipalities Act.

The city is governed by the 10-member Vancouver City Council, a nine-member School Board, and a seven-member Park Board, all elected for three-year terms through an at-large system. In addition, residents of Vancouver vote for representatives in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia and the Canadian House of Commons.

Historically, in all levels of government, the more affluent west side of Vancouver has voted along conservative or centre-right lines while the working-class eastern side of the city has voted along left-wing lines. This was reaffirmed with the results of the 2005 provincial election.

Unlike most other municipalities in Canada (aside from Montreal), Vancouver's civic politics operate under a system of locally based political parties, rather than unaligned independents.

Larry Campbell's election as mayor in 2002 was in part due to his willingness to champion alternative interventions for drug issues, such as supervised injection sites. The city has adopted a Four Pillars Drug Strategy, which combines harm reduction (e.g. needle exchanges, supervised injection sites) with treatment, enforcement, and prevention. The strategy is largely a response to the endemic HIV and hepatitis C among injection drug users in the city's Downtown Eastside neighbourhood. The area is characterized by entrenched poverty, and consequently is home to the "low track" street sex trade and a bustling "open air" street drug market, which gave rise to a significant AIDS epidemic in the 1990s. Some community and professional groups—such as From Grief to Action and Keeping the Door Open—are fostering public dialogue in the city about further alternatives to current drug policies. The harm reduction strategies appears to have been successful with the deactivation of the St. Paul's Hospital Ward 10C, on May 27, 2014, due to the near-elimination of AIDS cases in British Columbia.

...
Wikipedia