Mayor
Campbell has publicly identified himself as a moderate centrist, although his actions suggest that he was a left leaning candidate. His political positions put him in conflict with some of the leftist members of his Coalition of Progressive Electors party who had expected Campbell to take the city's government in a more social democratic direction once elected.
Shortly after Campbell's election, infighting broke out within his COPE party between the moderate Mayor and his like-minded city councillors versus some of their further left colleagues. On December 14, 2004, Campbell and councillors Jim Green, Raymond Louie and Tim Stevenson announced that they would caucus separately from the other COPE councillors, although did not quit the party. The media quickly dubbed the bloc the "COPE Light" councillors (in contrast to the "COPE Classic" councillors).
Campbell's two main projects in office were the Woodward's building redevelopment designed by architect Gregory Henriquez and the establishment of a safe injection site to help curb Vancouver's injection drug problem. He had championed the idea of a "four pillars" approach to ending drug abuse. With the 1999 signing of the Vancouver Agreement, the Four Pillars was characterized as "Prevention, Treatment, Law Enforcement and Harm Reduction." Campbell promoted the implementation of the safe injection site (opened in September 2003), and the Vancouver Police Department assigned 60 officers to the Downtown Eastside in April 2003.
In 2005 the Mayor announced that he would run for a second term as an independent; however on June 30, 2005, Campbell changed his mind and announced that he would not run for re-election at all in the fall municipal elections that year.
On August 2, 2005, Prime Minister Paul Martin announced Campbell's appointment by Governor General Adrienne Clarkson as a Liberal Senator. Campbell completed his term as mayor before taking up his seat in the Canadian Senate. Critics condemned Campbell's acceptance of the Senate post as hypocritical, as the Mayor had previously cited the fact that he was "not a politician" as a key reason for leaving his job at City Hall.
Read more about this topic: Larry Campbell
Famous quotes containing the word mayor:
“Break up the printing presses and you break up rebellion.”
—Dudley Nichols, U.S. screenwriter. Jean Renoir. Mayor (Thurston Hall)
“Without infringing on the liberty we so much boast, might we not ask our professional Mayor to call upon the smokers, have them register their names in each ward, and then appoint certain thoroughfares in the city for their use, that those who feel no need of this envelopment of curling vapor, to insure protection may be relieved from a nuisance as disgusting to the olfactories as it is prejudicial to the lungs.”
—Harriot K. Hunt (1805–1875)
“If a large city can, after intense intellectual efforts, choose for its mayor a man who merely will not steal from it, we consider it a triumph of the suffrage.”
—Frank Moore Colby (1865–1925)