A final look at the candidates and key issues for tomorrow’s by-election

What happened: It’s Election Day tomorrow, Saturday, April 5. The civic by-election is a chance for Vancouverites to choose two new city councillors to represent them at City Hall for the next year and a half. 

The candidates: There are 13 candidates running for two seats on city council. Seven of those candidates have been nominated by the big municipal political parties and have extensive platforms outlining their priorities and policies. 

Vancity Lookout also interviewed and put together profiles on these seven candidates – focusing on their personal background, motivations to run for office, and approach to governance – over the past two months. 

Here’s a list of those candidates with links to their platforms and our profiles, in the order they were interviewed:   

Lucy Maloney (OneCity), profile and platform.  

Colleen Hardwick and Theodore Abbott (TEAM), profile and platform.   

Sean Orr (COPE), profile and platform. 

Annette Rielly (Green), profile and platform.   

Ralph Kaisers and Jaime Stein (ABC), profile and platform. 

• If you prefer to listen, Cambie Report has you covered, with an episode coming directly from some of the candidates. 

The six Independent candidates are Jeanifer Decena, Guy Dubé, Charles Ling, Rollergirl, Karin Litzcke, and Gerry McGuire. An independent candidate hasn’t been elected to City Hall since 1988, according to CBC.

Referendum on ABC: This by-election campaign, as many are, is being framed largely as a referendum on the governing party. In this case, voters are being asked to reflect on the record of Mayor Ken Sim and his ruling ABC Party, which has held a large majority on city council since winning a huge electoral victory in 2022. 

ABC candidates Ralph Kaisers and Jaime Stein have primarily run on the governing party’s priorities to date, including reducing permitting regulations, looking for efficiencies and revenue opportunities in the city’s budget, and increasing funding for police and fire services.  

• On housing, ABC has reduced regulation, including around permitting and the city’s view cone policies – the latter which has spurred plans for taller buildings in northeast False Creek and downtown. They’ve also approved expanding the scope of the Broadway Plan to allow further high-rise and hotel development in the plan area.  

Good governance: Candidates from opposition parties – particularly Sean Orr (COPE), Annette Rielly (Green), and Lucy Maloney (OneCity) –  have focused on improving government transparency and accountability in their campaigns. 

They’ve highlighted the ABC majority council’s decisions to eliminate the elected park board and the renter’s office, freeze support for new supportive housing, and attempts to halt the work of the city’s integrity commissioner, as examples of bad governance. Orr, Rielly, and Maloney say they would try to restore and strengthen these institutions and policies if elected.  

Broadway Plan: The biggest and most complex policy issue is housing, with the Broadway Plan being a major focus. The area development plan was approved by the previous city council — including Green, OneCity, and current ABC councillors — and expanded by the current council, with Green councillors Adriane Carr and Pete Fry opposing and abstaining from further zoning changes.

• TEAM candidates Theodore Abbott and Colleen Hardwick, who voted against the Broadway Plan as a councillor in 2022, are campaigning to pause and rethink the city-wide area plans like the Broadway and Vancouver Plan. 

TEAM’s platform calls for these current planning structures to be reconsidered “under a new neighbourhood-based process, with meaningful involvement of local residents and businesses, resulting in local area-based plans.”

COPE’s Sean Orr is opposing demovictions caused by the plan, where renters in existing apartment buildings are evicted from their homes in order for new projects to be built. Orr hasn’t explicitly said he’d try to stop the Broadway Plan, but his COPE predecessor and mentor Jean Swanson voted against it in 2022. 

• Rielly, the Green’s candidate, said it’s a big misconception that pausing the plan would stop rezonings and evictions – pointing out that many of the rezonings allowed in the Broadway Plan will soon be mandated by the province’s Transit Oriented Development legislation. Rather than fight change, we should protect residents, Rielly told the Vancouver Sun. 

Renter protections: OneCity’s Lucy Maloney and Rielly are not opposing the Broadway Plan, instead campaigning for a city-wide expansion of the significant renter protection policy already included for most tenants in the plan area. Orr is also looking to strengthen and expand that policy, while the policy is not mentioned in TEAM’s platform. 

Between 80 and 90 per cent of renters in buildings undergoing rezoning in the plan area are eligible for enhanced relocation protections (though that still leaves out some). However, eligible tenants are still exposed to the stressful upheaval and uncertainty of a non-voluntary move. 

• Dig deeper: While tenant protections under the Broadway Plan and in neighbouring Burnaby are strong on paper, it really comes down to compliance and enforcement in uncharted waters, according to Storeys.

What it means: All the non-ABC candidates we spoke with emphasized how their role will mostly be as advocates, speaking their mind at council, doing their best to represent what they stand for, while being able to pass their own motions only when they can gain the support of other councillors. 

• The reality is, on most votes, if the six current ABC councillors plus the mayor vote as a block, they will be able to control which motions are passed at City Hall. That control will be reinforced if either one or both of the ABC candidates are elected. 

However, if voters fill both council seats with non-ABC councillors to join Pete Fry and newly independent Coun. Rebecca Bligh, it would only take two defections from ABC’s caucus to swing a contentious motion – as happened when Coun. Bligh, Lisa Dominato and Peter Meiszner voted against their colleagues on the gas ban issue. 

• There have already been five resignation or removals of elected officials from the ABC party this term, meaning there’s a realistic possibility of further party shakeups this term. Dominato seems to be the most likely of ABC’s current councillors to fall out with the party, as she recently spoke out and voted against Mayor Sim’s successful move to freeze supportive housing. 

While any prospective new councillor not named Kaisers or Stein will be limited in their ability to set their agenda and pass their policy priorities, tomorrow’s vote could send a clear message about how Vancouver voters view the current council. And, the new composition of council will set the tone for the remaining year and a half of this term and beyond.

Get ready to vote tomorrow, April 5th

Where to vote: On Saturday, you can vote at any polling location. Most of these are located in community centres around the city, plus City Hall. You can use this map of voting locations to find the most convenient one for you. 

• Voting hours for all locations are 8 am to 8 pm. 

Voter registration: If you voted in the 2024 provincial election, then you’re already registered to vote. If you’re not sure you can quickly double-check your registration status with this handy tool from the city. 

If you’re not registered yet you can still vote! You’ll just need to register in-person at the voting location with two pieces of ID – both showing your name, one showing your address, and one that has your signature.

• You can also register in person if you have no fixed address or only one piece of ID. Under the “Register to vote” section, you can find more information about registering to vote and examples of acceptable ID.

Voter eligibility: To be eligible to vote, you must live in Vancouver, be a Canadian citizen aged 18 or older, and have lived in B.C. for six months before registering to vote. 

• However, you can still vote if you own property in the city and meet all the other conditions except living in Vancouver.  

City councillors, advocates, and at least one candidate are pushing to revisit the case for Vancouver to expand voter eligibility to permanent residents in future elections, according to BIV. The current rules exclude nearly 65,000 permanent residents who live, work, and pay taxes in Vancouver. 

• While over 45 countries and several municipalities have granted permanent residents the right to vote, the province has twice rejected local government requests to do so.