Origins
Originally formed as the "Committee of Progressive Electors", COPE was formed in 1968, when a number of left-wing community groups and social justice organizations joined with the city's Labour Council to organize more effectively against the Non-Partisan Association (NPA)—a centre-right political party that had dominated civic politics in Vancouver. Frank Kennedy of the Vancouver & District Labour Council and Harry Rankin, an outspoken lawyer and city councillor, were key figures in shaping the coalition, along with activists from the British Columbia New Democratic Party and the Communist Party of British Columbia. COPE is generally guided by social-democratic principles, and has a long history of championing issues like improving public transit and investing in affordable housing.
Read more about this topic: Coalition Of Progressive Electors
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)