As Hancock noted, Mayor Lisa Helps and the other members of council, particularly the most outspokenly progressive, received a strong public mandate at the last election to pursue their reform agenda. The Times Colonist comment pages have mainly served as a forum for the city’s conservative and mostly privileged residents to counter even the most modest efforts to improve the urban environment and the living conditions of the homeless, the working poor and historically marginalized minority communities. Council’s efforts have necessarily been modest, given the lack of resources and powers available to effect meaningful change at the municipal level.