We can expect at least a few more contestants entering the crowded field before we learn in September who will appear on ballot
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Vancouver voters can be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed with the number of candidates vying for their support before this October’s municipal election. It’s a lot.
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No fewer than seven declared Vancouver mayoral candidates, backed by seven different parties, are currently running, and between them, those parties have announced dozens of new candidates for city council, park board and school board in the last few weeks alone.
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It remains to be seen, though, how many of those names will actually be on the ballot when voters go to the polls on Oct. 17.
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Sunrise
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Parties have been promoting their chosen candidates in recent weeks through news releases and social media, but they will not submit the paperwork officially endorsing candidates until September. So, a few big names could drop out or move around between now and that filing deadline.
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The landscape is currently fractured with three left-leaning parties working together to achieve a progressive win — although not everyone is satisfied with the extent of their ability to co-operate.
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And toward the centre and right side of the political spectrum, four parties are each seeking their own council majority. Incumbent Mayor Ken Sim is seeking a second term and another council majority for his ABC Vancouver party after their dominant 2022 win but will face three former allies with three different parties seeking to unseat him.
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Last month, the three left-of-centre Vancouver parties — OneCity, the Greens and COPE — announced they had signed an agreement, limiting the number of council, park board and school board candidates each party will run.
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The accord was unveiled with some fanfare: OneCity dubbed it, “the progressive victory agreement,” and the Greens heralded it as a “landmark agreement.”
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But it only goes so far. It still allows each party to run its own mayoral candidate, and to endorse up to five council candidates — for 10 available seats.
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“We’ve got three parties presenting themselves as a team, but … it’s a team that’s running 15 candidates for 10 seats and three people for mayor,” said Stephen von Sychowski, president of the Vancouver and District Labour Council, a union organization with a long history of involvement in progressive Vancouver politics. “We are urging the progressive parties to co-operate in a very real way with one another, and we’re not satisfied yet with where that is at, for obvious reasons.”
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The labour council, which represents 60,000 unionized workers in the Vancouver area, is expected to decide on May 19 which mayoral candidate it will endorse this year, and von Sychowski said he hopes the progressive parties can galvanize behind one mayoral candidate, and, ideally, no more than 10 council candidates.
