A Vancouver municipal party has issued a public apology to one of its former candidates, seven months after the election ended.
The Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) issued a letter dated May 21, apologizing to Diana Day for how they handled her campaign to run for the Vancouver School Board in the Oct. 20 election.
"Today, on behalf of COPE, we apologize for failing to adequately support your campaign for School Board and for the deplorable delay in our response," the letter, attributed to co-chairs Nancy Trigueros and Rider Cooey, reads.
The party lists several mistakes it says it committed, from failing to allocate extra financial resources to Day's campaign to issuing "inadequate or delayed" press releases.
It also noted that no staff member was assigned to support her bid, and that COPE wasn't able to secure a promised "crucial endorsement" from the local labour council. As a result, the party said Day lost votes that could have tipped the scales in her favour.
"These critical mistakes demonstrated that we did not anticipate nor understood the unequal ground and disadvantages that Indigenous candidates confront," the letter reads.
The party did not explain why there was such a long delay in issuing the apology.
In her candidate profile on the City of Vancouver's election page, Day laid out her election priorities as a food program for all children, culturally safe schools and housing for teachers.
Day finished just outside spot for the ninth candidate, losing by 670 votes to Vision Vancouver's Allan Wong.
If she had been elected, Day would've been the first Indigenous woman ever elected as a Vancouver school trustee.
This past election was the first time since the 2008 municipal campaign that COPE had a city councillor elected. And despite its apology towards Day, the party did have a candidate elected as a trustee.
Barb Parrott finished as the eighth of nine trustees elected, securing 48,189 votes.
