New childcare spaces and a by-election post-mortem at council

Good morning, 

Nate here with you. Today, we’ve got a story about the city’s ongoing efforts to create more childcare spaces in town. While today’s coverage is part of regular reporting on City Hall, we’d like to cover more issues impacting parents and families. And while we know there are lots of people with young families in Vancouver, it’s a bit of blindspot since solo-dog-dadding is the closest I’ve gotten to parenting.

To that end, we’re asking for any of our young-family-having readers to get in touch with us if you’re experiencing something (it could be good or bad) that you think could use more attention,  investigation, or just something you think other parents, families, or the general public should know about. 

It might be about childcare, schools, activities and programs, parents’ groups, playgrounds, transportation, or other parenting things I’m undoubtedly unaware of. 

With that, let’s get to today’s reporting on all the goings-on at 12th and Cambie.

— Nate Lewis, Vancity Lookout

As always, you can send your tips, leads, and story ideas to Nate at [email protected].

PS - If you find this newsletter valuable, please consider forwarding it to your friends. New to the Lookout? Sign-up for free. 

WEATHER

Wednesday: 13 🌡️ 8 | 🌧️

Thursday: 15 🌡️ 8 | 🌤️

Friday: 14 🌡️ 7 | 🌧️

THE LOOKOUT RECOMMENDS

What to eat: The popular Richmond Night Market is back. I haven’t had a chance yet to visit this year, but if you’re looking for some recommendations, you can read our 2024 guide. The event is also celebrating 25 years with an all-day happy hour menu that’s got food for under $10 and drinks for just $7. 

What to do: We had a peek at our latest survey and a few people mentioned highlighting comedy shows. One to keep an eye on is The Bachelor-ish, presented by the Improv Centre, every Saturday and Sunday night, which features a cast of would-be bachelors created by audience suggestions. Sounds fun!

One big story: MEC is back? Well, it’s not returning as a co-op — though there’s debate about whether it ever was a true co-op — Canadian investors now own it instead of a US-based company. One positive sign is that the chief merchandising officer is Chris Speyer, who used to work at the beloved REI. [CBC]

French? Please!: St. Lawrence owner J-C Poirer is teaming up with other restaurant alumni to open Chez Céline at 4298 Fraser St. this Friday. Rather than haute cuisine, this place will focus on the casual. Think pork chops, frites, escargot, and gnocchi. 

Nothing better than free: For those wanting to be thrifty this weekend, you should check out the Day of Music, featuring over 70 performers across the city.

— Curated by Geoff Sharpe, Lookout managing editor

CITY HALL

New childcare spaces and a by-election post-mortem at council

What happened: Rarely is there a quiet day at city council, and, as usual, Tuesday’s meeting was packed with reports on consequential issues. This week’s meeting focused on new childcare spaces and the city’s failed planning for the recent by-election.

More childcare, eventually: Council approved non-profit operators for 488 new childcare spaces, across 12 locations, that are planned to open with financial and facility support from the city. Vancouver currently has a deficit of about 7,200 childcare spaces for kids aged 0-5.  

• However, it will be 2-5 years before those facilities will be open for programming. Four of the new facilities are located Downtown, three near Oakridge, and one each in Cambie Village, Marpole, the River District, Joyce-Collingwood, and Mount Pleasant.

Additionally, the city created just under 400 new childcare spaces that have or will open between 2024 and 2026, according to Mayor Ken Sim, including the new facility at Eric Hamber Secondary. 

• Overall, there are about 3,000 childcare spaces in various stages of planning and development in Vancouver, about 70 per cent of which get support from the city.

Council priority: While childcare is primarily a provincial responsibility, the city has been acquiring a number of new childcare facilities as part of building development approvals, where developers construct and hand over the rights to these spaces to the city. 

As part of issuing rezoning or development permits the city gets to negotiate a community amenity contribution from the developer as part of the project, and childcare facilities have recently become a prominent amenity that the city is getting from these projects.   

• About 75 per cent of city-owned spaces are part of the province’s $10-per-day childcare program, according to staff. 

The politics: Councillor Lucy Maloney brought up that, in the 2022 election campaign, ABC had promised to create 5,000 new childcare spaces by 2026, and compared it to ABC’s unmet campaign promise to hire 100 mental health nurses. Maloney’s comment drew a rebuke from Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung on a point of procedure about casting aspersions on other council members. 

“We usually don’t have political rhetoric… this would be a first if we’re going to start doing this in this chamber,” Kirby-Yung said.  

What it means: While Maloney’s comment was politically pointed, it was grounded in fact, and spoke to the unhelpful practice of many political parties, including ABC, to overpromise during an election campaign and, once in office, explain the shortfall by pointing to the very real practical complexities of most public projects.  

However, while they haven’t met their lofty election promises, the ABC majority clearly has focused city resources on creating more childcare spaces in the city and is shrinking that deficit. But like so many facets of city-building, those efforts are going to take longer than one term to bear fruit.

Bye election: Another significant item on council’s docket on Tuesday was a report on the 2025 by-election, most of which focused on the city’s failed planning efforts that resulted in multi-hour lines at many voting places. 

“I think everyone on council realizes that it was unacceptable that people had to wait for several hours to vote in the by-election,” ABC Councillor Peter Meiszner said, saying many people had other responsibilities that day and couldn’t wait that long. 

In 2025, staff recommended (and city council approved) a 50 per cent reduction in polling places and a 62 per cent reduction in staff, compared to the 2017 by-election. Meiszner was the only councillor who expressed serious concern about the reduction in staffing when it was recommended by staff in January, according to CBC.

• On Tuesday, councillors heard that the biggest bottlenecks in vote processing were during registration, when voters got their ballots from an election worker, rather than at the electronic vote tabulators being used to process ballots. 

Staff also said they weren’t able to enforce rules around voters not visibly promoting candidates or parties (through wearing buttons for example) because they were short-staffed. That was an issue at some polling places, according to Meiszner and staff.

Looking ahead: Council asked staff to consider a number of election improvements, including an expansion of the number of advanced voting days and improving vote-by-mail access, amongst other things, and report back before the next election in 2026.

• Council also moved to ask the province for a legislated requirement for employers to give employees time off to vote in Vancouver’s municipal elections – something that is currently required for federal and provincial elections, but not local ones. 

“We need to ensure that it’s much easier to vote and people can exercise their democratic rights... Voters deserve to know these mistakes won’t be repeated in 2026,” Meiszner said.  

Big swing: ABC Coun. Mike Klassen even tried to start a conversation with the province about Elections BC managing elections for Vancouver and other larger municipalities. However, that idea was largely shut down by other councillors, with Green Coun. Fry pointing out that local governments know their regions the best, and that this sort of idea shouldn’t be unilaterally brought to the province without input from other municipalities.

Voter suppression? TEAM For a Liveable Vancouver, whose candidates finished third and fifth in the by-election, released a statement on Monday accusing the city of “widespread voter suppression,” through their decision to reduced polling places and election staff. 

TEAM’s statement included a report estimated that about 33,800 people didn’t vote because of the long lines on the day of the 2025 by-election. If should be noted that the  report was authored by Thomas Kroeker, who is a TEAM party member (as of July 2024), as well as an academic assistant at UBC’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. Kroeker’s estimate was based on the increased turnout at three of the least busy polling places between 2017 and 2025 and applied city-wide.       

• When COPE Coun. Sean Orr brought up Kroeker’s estimate, staff said they don’t have any data on how many people left without voting due to long waits.

VANCOUVER NUMBERS

💰️ $1.2 million: The approximate amount of nine grants approved unanimously by the city council for improvements, maintenance, and fire safety in single-room occupancy buildings. A third of that money is going to one 42-room building that’s been closed since August 2022 due to fire. [COV]

📈 2,179: The number of completed new condos sitting empty and unsold in Metro Vancouver, with that number predicted to hit nearly 3,500 by the end of 2025, according to a report last month from real estate marketer Rennie

PUBLIC SAFETY

City, VPD release preliminary report on Lapu Lapu Festival tragedy

What happened: While it has yet to go before council, on May 15, the city and the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) issued a preliminary report on the incident at the Lapu Lapu Festival last month, where a vehicle was driven into the block party, killing 11 people and injuring many more. 

• The preliminary report focused on the details of the event’s planning process, gave more details on how the city and VPD plan for special events, and what’s being done to improve public safety at events going forward.

Organizing details: The report found that all standard requirements for planning a special event were met by the Lapu Lapu Festival organizers, including an event safety plan that had been reviewed by the city. The VPD did not recommend police deployment for the event based on its traffic management plan. 

• The event was rated as ‘high’ complexity, with vendors, the use of multiple side streets, and a large expected attendance.

New tools: In February 2025, the VPD purchased two mobile vehicle barrier systems that can be used at events. Each barrier system can replace up to two heavy vehicles, usually dump trucks, for physical security from vehicles at public events. The new barrier systems were delivered to the city in mid-May.   

• The Lapu Lapu Festival traffic plan called for standard sawhorse barricades, road signage, and traffic flaggers, and no vehicle barricades. The use of heavy vehicle barricades is rare in Vancouver, and were only deployed at a handful of events (less than 1.5%) permitted by the city in 2024. 

The city, VPD, and Vancouver Fire Rescue Services have now created a shared database of upcoming planned events, including event risk factors “and are considering any further safety enhancements, with appropriate consideration” for the Lapu Lapu Festival tragedy, according to the report. 

Provincial inquiry: The province has also launched an inquiry into community event safety, and that report is expected to be finished by the end of June. The city and VPD said they will consider and apply the province’s findings for future events. 

The city and VPD are putting together a final report — including best practices for public event safety and the findings from the province’s inquiry — that’s expected to be done by the last week of August. 

DREAM HOME

Summer is quickly approaching, so we thought we’d feature a home with an ocean view.

This is luxury living, if your version of that includes about 550 square feet of space with one bedroom and one bathroom. But don’t let the small size fool you. This place packs a beautiful view of the ocean, Italian marble and tasteful designs, with a lovely-sized patio for hosting guests.

How much will it set you back? More than you think… 

THE AGENDA

🚫 The province has abruptly cancelled a contract with their controversial consultant on the Downtown Eastside (DTES), with Premier David Eby saying the appointment had become a distraction. Michael Bryant was expected to provide advice to the province after meeting with service providers and stakeholders in the DTES. Bryant’s contract – which was obtained by community organization Our DTES and shared with Vancity Lookout – set out one outcome: a framework to support the province’s goals in the neighbourhood, which, contractually, didn’t need to be achieved. Bryant was paid about $75,000 for just over three months of the work, while the original contract was valued at $300,000 for a year. [CBC, Our DTES]

🚢 The Vancouver Fraser Port Authority has begun consultation and field studies to dredge Burrard Inlet in order to accommodate fully loaded oil tankers, which currently only fill to about 80 per cent capacity, to provide clearance throughout the harbour. The project has been supported by Prime Minister Mark Carney and, conditionally, by the province, while some environmentalists, experts, and First Nations have criticized the idea. [CityNews]

🛃 A family-run specialty food store on Commercial Drive says their bulk imports of Mediterranean food are being delayed, held up by Canadian border authorities for as long as months, leading to thousands of dollars in additional costs. The store may be forced to close if those delays and costs continue to increase, they said. [CTV]

🪗 Last week’s public hearing on the new tower proposal at Commercial and Broadway got a dose of levity, with one speaker performing an original song (with an accordion!) in favour of the development. “I think we’re allowed to clap for that,” Mayor Ken Sim said at the end of speaker's rendition of their song, which they dubbed the “Megatowers Polka.” [Urbanized]

Outside Vancouver 

📃 The much-anticipated governance review of the Metro Vancouver Board, released Tuesday, found a need to streamline the board’s size and structure, but, more broadly, spoke to a general need to rebuild a culture of trust among board members, staff, and member municipalities. The issues with the North Shore wastewater plan have “created an environment of extreme tension,” while board members are caught between dual and sometimes competing duties to the region and their jurisdictions. Notably, the review found that, while there are areas to reduce board payment, Metro Van’s payment model and amounts are comparable to similar organizations. [Metro Vancouver, CBC]

FROM THE ARCHIVE

Stitched at Gordon Smith Gallery explores the boundaries of photography

The art exhibit goes beyond what you'd traditionally expect from a photography exhibit.

Read the story

ARTS GUIDE

Art

The Vancouver Art Gallery has a new show Written in Clay, starting on May 25, showcasing a history of ceramics in BC, with over 200 different objects. 

The Vancouver Community College’s Jewellery Art & Design Student Exhibition is on May 30. Come see how creative the students have been. It's free to attend. 

Music

Jack White is performing two shows at the Commodore Ballroom this week. 

Fans of musicals will want to check out Summer Strings at the Playhouse on June 3, featuring the music of West Side Story, performed by youth strings and an adult ensemble. Tickets are $19. 

Movies 

Cinematheque continues its showcase of Robert Bresson films with A Man Escaped, described as Bresson’s pinnacle achievement about a man seeking to escape a Nazi prison cell.

VIFF’s latest series is Compassion Light: Stories of Tibet by Pema Tsedan, featuring eight of his movies showcasing Tibet. Or if you’re looking for something lighter, Finding Dory is on as well!

PHOTO OF THE DAY

There’s something really poetic about today’s photo of the day. Is it the forlorn seagull? The beautiful illuminated hot dog stand? Whatever it is, it’s a great shot… though the real ones know that gull should be going to Nick at Mr. Tube Steak instead.

COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHTS

• Finally! More off-leash dog leash parks are coming to Vancouver, including in Heather Park, Granville Park, and an expansion of the one at Emery Barnes Park. [Vancouver Sun]

• If you’re in the mood for prawns, you’ll want to check out these events. [Straight]

• Some sad news in Vancouver’s food scene — Nguyễn Thị Thanh, who opened Lunch Lady, has passed away. [BlogTO]

• A new book about Chinatown probes the area’s history and future, all in an illustrated burst of colour [The Tyee]

• Chip Wilson’s new sign is up and glowing in Kits [Urbanized]

• All you Who fans get excited, because the famous band is on its last tour ever and is performing at Rogers Arena on Sept. 23. [Straight]