Shauna Sylvester wants to become mayor of Vancouver. Here's what she needs to have happen

After months of speculation, Vancouver has its first high-profile mayoral candidate from the centre-left of the political spectrum.

Shauna Sylvester, the director of Simon FraserUniversity's Centre for Dialogue, is announcing Thursday she's running as an independent candidate for mayor of Vancouver, inthe hopethe city's progressive parties will support her.

"We need a bridge builder, somebody that can work across differences, and I've done that for 30 years," she saidin an interview the day before her candidacy became official.

"I spent a lot of time workingtrying to address problems, bringing people who do not necessarily agree together at the table to come up with a better end. It's not a set of skills that a lot of people have.I have it.I think it's what Vancouver needs right now, so I think that uniquely positions me to play this role."

But for that to happen, traditional supporters of progressive parties in Vancouver will have to decide she's the best person to vote for and there are a couple of key reasons why that's not yet certain.

Background on boards and with Vision

Sylvester, who would become Vancouver's first female mayor, has an extensive resumas a professional facilitatorand has sat on many high-profile boards, including Vancity Credit Union and Mountain Equipment Cooperative.

Elections are partly about public image, however, and every Vancouver mayor in recent times had a higher profile before their campaign than Sylvester currently has.

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"I'm a different kind of leader," she said, when asked why her lack of elected experience is an asset.

"I come at things differently than our current mayor, and I'm excited about actually working with people that aren't just in political parties, that look at the world in different termsand channel that energy differently."

Sylvester has sat on the board ofVision Vancouverand donated hundreds of dollars to the party in each of the last three elections.

She saysshe won't deny her background, but her history is actively working across party lines to forge consensus and doesn't shy away from talking about failures on thehousing front.

"I want to be in a city where young people are. Our small businesses are losing out.The rents are so high, taxation has gone up, because assessments have gone up. It's not a good situation, and we need to deal with that first and foremost."

'The city's on a good direction'

But if you askSylvester what her priorities are, she'll list areas that have been priorities of the city for the last 10years: encouraging more harm reduction opportunities for opioid victims,extendingthe Millennium Line to UBC,opposing the Kinder Morgan pipeline,promoting environmental initiativesandsupportingthe city's new housing strategy.

"I think the city's on a good direction.There's lots of good building blocks here," she said.

She's also made the choice not to be critical of Vision during the campaign which will ultimately tie her chances to public perception of the group that has governed Vancouver for the last decade.

"I'm not interested in looking at the past and hammering at things people did wrong. I actually look at the past and look at a whole series of mayorsand feel like I'd be standing on pretty big shoulders, and I can look back along political lines, and point to things different mayors have done that have really built this city."

Path to victory

Will Sylvesterget the opportunity to stand on those shoulders?

To do it, she'll need to have Vision Vancouver choose to not run a candidateand support her instead something it, coincidentally, opened the door to a day earlier when it announced it wasn't yet ready to run a mayoral candidate of its own.

Then,Sylvester says she would need both the Green Party and OneCity to support her candidacy;something she's spoken to them about.

And while she'd like the support of COPE, she saysshe can go forward without them.

"I don't know if there's an alignment in values."

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Finally, Sylvesterwould need to receive the most votes on Oct.20more than the resurgent Non-Partisan Association and more than any potentialfar-left candidate whocould split the vote.

Do all that, andSylvesterbecomes Vancouver's first female mayor andthe city's first independent mayor since 1972.

It's a tallbut not impossibleorder, andSylvester doesn't lack confidence.

"I don't want to split the vote, if there's someone that I think ismore qualified," she said."I don't see that person."