TOUGH-TALKING EX-COP SEEKS MAYOR'S JOB

Larry Campbell Will Be The Candidate For Left-wing Cope Slate

A charismatic, tough-talking former cop and coroner is set to become the
mayoral candidate for Vancouver's left-wing municipal party.

Larry Campbell, whose passionate advocacy for the poor and the
drug-addicted while he was a Vancouver coroner became the inspiration for
the CBC series Da Vinci's Inquest, is expected to announce at 10 a.m. today
on the steps of city hall that he is running with the Coalition of
Progressive Electors.

COPE officials and Campbell refused to comment Wednesday, likely because
the executive was to hold its formal vote on his candidacy Wednesday night.
Two other prominent COPE politicians, both former mayoral candidates who
had been considered for the position -- Jim Green and David Cadman -- will
run for council spots.

Campbell's candidacy is expected to add flair and fireworks to the
municipal elections and to COPE. Campbell is a newcomer to both.

With his blunt style and unequivocal support for Mayor Philip Owen's
controversial plan for dealing with drug addiction and crime in the
Downtown Eastside, he is sure to contrast sharply with his opponent, Non
Partisan Association candidate Jennifer Clarke. Clarke, a three-term
councillor, tends to be a cautious speaker and she has been equivocal about
her support for the plan.

Clarke, who comes from a prominent Shaughnessy family, has talked about the
Downtown Eastside as a ghetto that needs to be retaken block by block.
Campbell worked there for years as a coroner, has been a long-time board
member with the homeless shelter Triage in the neighbourhood, and routinely
delivers Christmas dinners in the area.

Campbell has also worked for several years with an ad-hoc coalition of
people to try to introduce new solutions to the city's drug-addiction
problem, which has resulted in hundreds of deaths, disease epidemics,
rampant crime, and a sense of social breakdown in the area around Main and
Hastings.

In past interviews, he has said he believes the traditional war on drugs is
hopeless and, like Owen, he advocates a combination of better treatment for
those who want to get off drugs and better health care for those who are
still addicted, including safe injection sites where addicts can be
monitored by medical staff to make sure they don't infect themselves or
overdose.

Chris Haddock, the executive producer and creator of Da Vinci's Inquest,
describes Campbell as "a real mix: very tough, but extremely compassionate.
When he sets his teeth into something, he shakes it pretty hard."

Gillian Maxwell, a Vancouver police board member who has worked with
Campbell to organize education forums on drug-addiction solutions, says:
"He's a great person for bringing people with different interests together
and helping them work out solutions. He's really expert at that."

Others have described him as a combination of utterly charming and brutally
honest.

"He can put people off because he doesn't pull any punches," says one
former co-worker.

He's generous, but no fool. Once, when a homeless woman on the street asked
for help, he didn't hand over money. Instead, he drove her to Helen's
Restaurant on Kingsway and gave the waitress $20 to feed her and let her
sit in the restaurant for a while.

His e-mail messages to friends currently come accompanied with a quote from
Dante: "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of
great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality."

Within the party, Campbell will be an equally idiosyncratic figure. Some
members are still uncomfortable that a man who has little history with the
party and not much knowledge of its much-debated policies will become its
major public symbol. It's still not clear where he stands on issues other
than the drug policy.

But many within COPE are thrilled that the until-now apolitical Campbell
has decided to join the party, a move that breaks COPE's stereotype as a
collection of earnest and dogmatic do-gooders and gives it a sense of new life.

COPE, which was so off the radar that it didn't elect a single person to
council, school board or park board in 1996, has been showing signs of
re-energizing after putting on a conference earlier this year about city
planning and attracting 2,000 party members in the last few months. It
currently has 37 people in the running for the 26 spots on the municipal slate.

Insiders also speculate that Green and Cadman may be the ultimate
beneficiaries of Campbell's run with COPE. It is sure to generate public
attention, which may not be enough to get him into the mayor's chair, but
could translate to council seats for the two equally tough and pragmatic
men alongside him: Green, a longtime advocate for the Downtown Eastside and
the man who almost beat Gordon Campbell in a provincial election, and
Cadman, a strong environmental activist.

Campbell, 54, was an RCMP officer for 12 years in the Lower Mainland,
before beginning work in the coroner's service in 1981. He eventually
became Vancouver's regional coroner and then, in 1996, B.C.'s chief
coroner. He resigned in 2000 to go into private-sector work. Since then, he
has done consulting work for government and the police commission, along
with script-writing for Da Vinci's Inquest. He was shortlisted for the
position of police chief in Saskatoon last year and in Vancouver this year.
Although he made it into the top four in Vancouver, he was seen as a little
too outside the box by the local police board.

Campbell lives in Point Grey and, like Da Vinci, married a pathologist.
Unlike Da Vinci, he is still married.