Civic election could end long streak of no South Asian representation at Vancouver city hall
Posted October 16, 2018 5:25 am.
Last Updated October 17, 2018 9:35 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – People of South Asian descent may be the second-largest visible minority group in Vancouver, but throughout its entire history, the city has seen just one member of that community serve on city council.
V. Setty Pendakur was elected in 1972, serving one term. Since then, Vancouver has elected a South Asian school board trustee and park commissioner — both of them men — but no further councillors.
Pendakur says the city’s South Asian population has decreased in the decades since he was elected. Just over 37,000 people identified as such in the 2016 census, representing about six per cent of the total population.
“Essentially, what we used to have in the southeast portion of the city of Vancouver, most of them have moved out to Surrey,” Pendakur explained.
He adds that while South Asian candidates have found success on the provincial and national levels, the city’s “flawed” at-large voting system makes it difficult to consolidate community support.
That hasn’t prevented council candidate Taqdir Kaur Bhandal from making ethnicity a central part of her campaign messaging.
“Diverse communities have rarely, if ever, been represented at the level of governance so that’s really important to me,” Bhandal said.
“The last South Asian elected to city council was in 1972. It’s time for another,” her campaign website reads.
She also argues in a campaign video that “diversity powers our city; we need politicians who are engaged in and reflect Vancouver’s multiple histories.”
“It’s important to understand Vancouver as a city that’s rooted in a settler colonial history, so, the laws and governance structures were determined by a certain group of people who were male, western European and we’ve sort of been following along that history,” Bhandal added.
Pendakur, however, does not subscribe to the idea of representation by ethnicity.
“The first thing is qualification,” he said. “The colour of skin, height, weight — all those things come next. First is what do you stand for, what have you accomplished, which organizations you have served before, what is your background, what is the level of your commitment to the community.”
People of Chinese descent make up the largest visible minority group in Vancouver, representing about 27 per cent of the population. Two current council members are of Chinese descent.
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