Politics
Rankin ran for office more than a dozen times before being elected to Vancouver's city council in 1966 as the sole independent alderman on a council dominated by the conservative Non-Partisan Association. Vancouver's aldermen were elected through an "at large" system rather than by ward meaning voters from wealthier neighbourhoods were able to monopolise council elections and that only candidates who could afford a city-wide campaign had a chance of being elected. Rankin helped form the Committee of Progressive Electors (COPE) as a left wing civic political party and it subsequently pushed for a ward-based electoral system to be introduced in Vancouver, culminating in a referendum in October 1973, at which the ward proposal was defeated.
Rankin was a 20 year veteran of city council when he ran for Mayor in 1986 losing to Gordon Campbell. He returned to city council as an alderman in the subsequent election and remained on the body until his retirement from politics in 1993.
He died on February 26, 2002 from a heart attack, aged 81.
Rankin's widow, Connie Fogal, is the former leader of the Canadian Action Party.
Read more about this topic: Harry Rankin
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“I believe you to be a brave and a skillful soldier, which, of course, I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“The word “revolution” itself has become not only a dead relic of Leftism, but a key to the deadendedness of male politics: the “revolution” of a wheel which returns in the end to the same place; the “revolving door” of a politics which has “liberated” women only to use them, and only within the limits of male tolerance.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“In politics people throw themselves, as on a sickbed, from one side to the other in the belief they will lie more comfortably.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)