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  • OneCity Vancouver nominate their city council candidate, as left-leaning parties try to avoid vote splitting

OneCity Vancouver nominate their city council candidate, as left-leaning parties try to avoid vote splitting

Lucy Maloney will be OneCity's candidate, while the Greens also plan to run just one candidate for the two open council seats.

What happened: Lucy Maloney has officially been announced as OneCity Vancouver’s candidate for city councillor in the upcoming municipal by-election on April 5th. 

Background: Maloney, who hails from Australia and has lived all over the world, has a professional background as a public sector environmental lawyer. Maloney also holds an MBA and worked in the private sector for several years. 

Since moving here in 2017, Maloney has become well-known in Vancouver through her road safety advocacy and numerous media appearances as a spokesperson for a number of organizations. For transparency, this reporter has had numerous interactions with Maloney over the years while writing for the West End Journal, some of which is linked below.

  • Prominent among those organizations are Love the Lane, a group Maloney created that advocated for a permanent separated bike lane on Stanley Park Drive, Vision Zero Vancouver, a transportation safety group working to eliminate death and serious injury on Metro Vancouver roads, and several roles with Parent Advisory Councils at a school and district level, highlighted by her volunteer work on the Comox School Street project. 

What we heard: In an exclusive Q&A with Vancity Lookout we sent to our Insider members yesterday, Maloney described how her advocacy work led to this point of running for city government. 

“Because I was always out on the street talking to people in the school community, people knew they could come to me with their problems to get them solved. Being right out there, face-to-face with my community, really helped me listen to people's concerns, and try to find a way of solving those problems.

“I just gradually worked harder and harder to talk directly to the elected officials across school board, park board, council to advocate for change. Soon it started taking up my whole time because my kids are getting more independent now they're older and I've got more capacity.

“Over time, I've come to the realization that the most effective way I can work to make things better is to run for council,” Maloney said.

  • While her expertise lies in transportation and climate change, the number one issue for Vancouver is housing, Maloney said, adding she’s also hearing lots of concerns about affordability and safety.  

The party: Maloney is seeking to become just the second OneCity candidate to win a council seat. OneCity, a progressive municipal political party founded in 2014, successfully elected former city councillor Christine Boyle in 2018 and 2022. Maloney said she’s been inspired by Boyle, adding Boyle has been helpful and enthusiastic about Maloney’s candidacy. 

  • “I was so impressed with Christine Boyle on council. I just agreed with her on so many decisions. Her votes, her actions on council, the motions she moved, and the way she listens to people, helped me to realize that OneCity is my political home,” Maloney said.

After being elected as the MLA for Vancouver-Little Mountain in the fall 2024 provincial election, Boyle took a leave of absence and eventually resigned her council position. The April 5th by-election is being held to fill two seats on city council – Boyle’s former council seat and the seat of longtime Green Party of Vancouver councillor Adriane Carr, who resigned in mid-January. 

  • Dive deeper: You can read The Tyee’s recent Q&A with Carr on her city hall career here.

Other candidates: The other civic parties have yet to announce their candidates. The Greens, The Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE), and Team For A Liveable Vancouver have all said they’ll hold their respective nomination meetings amongst their members between Feb. 1st and 5th. 

  • ABC Vancouver told Vancity Lookout that decisions regarding their nomination process will be made in the coming weeks. 

Election tactics: Some of Vancouver’s progressive or left-leaning parties, including the Greens and OneCity, are nominating just one candidate, rather than two each, in an effort to not split the vote amongst left-leaning electors. COPE said they plan to run at least one candidate, according to the Vancouver Sun. 

  • Sean Orr, who previously ran for city council with the VOTE Socialist party in 2022, said he’d be seeking the COPE nomination. 

History lesson: It’s not the first time Vancouver’s left-of-centre parties have agreed to limit candidates to avoid vote splitting.  In 2018, the Vancouver District and Labour Council negotiated agreements with five parties – including the Greens, OneCity, and COPE – in an attempt to limit vote splitting in the 2018 municipal election. Collectively, the three parties got five councillors elected out of nine candidates. 

  • That decision came on the heels of the 2017 byelection, when the right-leaning NPA’s Hector Bremner won with about 28% of votes, with three left-leaning candidates, Jean Swanson (Independent), Pete Fry (Green), and Judy Graves (OneCity), splitting around 55% of the vote. 

After running 13 candidates in 2022 and only electing three councillors, it seems the Greens, OneCity, and COPE are returning to some of the lessons and successes of their electoral strategies in 2017 and 2018. 

What it means: On its face, the results of the by-election won’t change the fact that the ABC Party currently has an overwhelming majority on council, plus an additional vote available from Mayor Ken Sim. The resignations of Boyle and Carr means that, currently, Green councillor Pete Fry is alone on council amongst seven ABC councillors.

However, the bigger factor on that front will be whether ABC councillors remain united. In a consequential and controversial vote in November 2024 regarding a gas policy, ABC councillors Peter Meiszner, Lisa Dominato, and Rebecca Bligh broke from their colleagues to vote down the ABC-led initiative. The vote, a 5-5 tie (meaning it was defeated) with Boyle absent and already on leave, demonstrated the ABC majority was not rock solid when it came to voting as a group.

  • Speaking to the signs of discord amongst the majority, there was also the awkward optics of the now-infamous “wild west of f**king procedure” moment — an argument between ABC councillors Bligh, Mike Klassen, and Sarah Kirby-Yung, highlighted by Kirby-Yung swearing at her colleagues and Mayor Sim wandering out of a back room, looking shocked, during an October 2024 council meeting. 

So while two other non-ABC councillors joining Fry in the minority opposition wouldn’t flip that equation – ABC would, on paper, enjoy the same majority they had at the beginning of their term – those two additional free votes could make it effective or worthwhile for other ABC councillors to vote their conscience on certain issues.

Conversely, if voters were to elect one or two more ABC councillors, the bolstered majority would have an easier time whipping votes and overcoming any dissension or tensions within their party.