Firefighters endorse Robertson, not Dhaliwal; union thinks Geller swell too
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 at 02:41PMVancouver's firefighters union is endorsing Gregor Robertson for mayor, as well as every single Vision council candidate - but one.
Vision candidate Kashmir Dhaliwal is the only council candidate who didn't get the thumbs up from the union. Instead, IAFF local 18 endorsed the NPA's Michael Geller as its only NPA candidate.
Dhaliwal's omission came down to "familiarity," said union president Rod McDonald.
"We weren't too sure about where we were on him so much," MacDonald said. "We had much more familiarity with the other candidates."
On the other hand, McDonald said firefighters were hopeful that Geller wouldn't be governed by political ideology.
"He seemed to be an open-minded free-thinking type of person," McDonald said. "He just gave us a strong indication that he would vote on issues, rather than by party lines."
Here's a list of the union endorsements:
For Mayor:
Gregor Robertson (Vision)
For Council:
David Cadman (COPE)
George Chow (Vision)
Heather Deal (Vision)
Michael Geller (NPA)
Kerry Jang (Vision)
Raymond Louie (Vision)
Geoff Meggs (Vision)
Andrea Reimer (Vision)
Tim Stevenson (Vision)
Ellen Woodsworth (COPE)
In 2005, the union decided not to back Chow, instead picking the NPA's Kim Capri. Both councillors were elected and are running for re-election.
Firefighters have been without a contract for almost two years now.
"The morale in our department with our members, I have never in my 29 years on the job seen anything like it," McDonald said.
"It's all about our labour relations and the fact our radios don't work properly and we don't get any training ... It goes on and on and on. We're not happy about it."
