Vancouver Greens mayoral candidate Pete Fry says he won’t participate in a proposal by OneCity to hold a “progressive primary” ahead of this year’s election.

OneCity’s mayoral candidate, William Azaroff, is calling on three left-leaning parties in Vancouver to present a single mayoral candidate, in order to increase their chances of unseating Mayor Ken Sim.

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But Fry says OneCity’s offer wasn’t presented in the spirit of collaboration between his caucus and COPE, the third progressive party, and contains rules designed to benefit Azaroff’s campaign.

“It is very myopic and self-serving,” Fry said.

Fry criticized the way in which OneCity approached – or didn’t approach – the other progressive parties.

“We found out about this concept through a press release that we were not invited to. We were not made aware of this until the media started reporting it on the same day as the budget.”

Fry noted the offer – which he described as an “ultimatum” – includes a rule stating that only registered members of the three parties can vote in the proposed primary.

While OneCity just held a membership drive, offering discounted $1 memberships in some cases to extend its base, the Greens and COPE have not run similar campaigns recently.

“To be clear, I don’t think OneCity put forward the people’s primary at all. OneCity put forward the OneCity primary. The people’s primary is really ascertaining the will of the people, not the OneCity membership,” Fry added.

He acknowledged OneCity has a vocal base of supporters, but said a strong online presence doesn’t necessarily convert into success at the polls.

“You often find these sorts of loud voices that are very organized and spend a lot of money and have sort of online armies of trolls and bots and commenters that don’t necessarily translate to electoral success,” Fry said.

“In fact, oftentimes it really just contributes to the sort of a bubble and echo chamber.”

Fry didn’t shut the door to cooperation completely, however.

He says he is still happy to work with the other parties on a common path forward, but that has to involve fair collaboration with every party involved.

– With files from Ben Bouguerra.