Earlier this week I did a story about Matt Hern's candidacy for the board of Vancity, which was later taken down by me (at Matt's request). My understanding is that Vancity threatened to remove him as a candidate if the story were to stay up.
I suppose it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but it turns out that the Vancity elections are hardly a model of democracy.
Here's why:
Vancity has essentially put a gag-order on candidates for the board. I don't know how old this policy is, but here's the nitty gritty:
- it is not appropriate nor permitted for a candidate to claim that he or she has or will implement specific platforms or policies.-Candidates must not make promises of what will happen or what actions they will support if they are elected to the board in any materials that they distribute or that tend to support them, directly or indirectly.-There will be no negative campaigning; candidates may not make or support negative comments about Vancity, its management, staff, Board, or other candidates.
The Board has also endorsed five candidates for the three director positions. These five candidates were recommended by the Nominations and Election Committee and are identified by the + symbol on all election material.
This year’s five endorsed candidates are: Anita Braha, Geordie Henderson, Patrice Pratt, David Wong and Kim Richter. The order of names for the endorsed candidates is drawn by lot. The order of appearance for the non-endorsed candidates has also been determined by lot.
Nice, huh? Not only does Vancity effectively obscure everything but candidates' past work experience and assurances that they're really nice people from Vancity members, they pre-select the winners.
In sum, it appears Vancity has taken as many precautions as possible to avoid coming under community control on a formal/board level. Even though Vancity is technically a co-op, I suppose the term loses meaning fast when we're talking about an organization with assets of over $14 billion.
The site for the Vancouver local of The Media Co-op has been archived and will no longer be updated. Please visit the main Media Co-op website to learn more about the organization.
Comments
Interesting info.....
No big surprise.
I find it strange how many people invest so much into VanCity. (not just money)
Perhaps it was the original promises that they began with? "Doing so much right with crapitalism".
I actually did not like the fact you posted the piece in question.
Really, it is no shock they are "worth" (have assets) around 14billion.
I actually believe much of their original mission and promise have become tokenism, at best.
Thank you for writing this Dawn!
tami
ps.....nice photo!