Metro Vancouver voted for change, rejecting incumbent mayors in search of affordability solutions

The winds of change blew through Metro Vancouver this weekend, where residents in the majority of municipalities — 14 of 21 — woke up Sunday morning with a new mayor.

And in nine of those cities, incumbent mayors were defeated by challengers — a significant upheaval because name recognition is typically a strong asset in municipal elections.

The results signalled “greater voter discontent” and an electorate clamouring for city halls to offer new answers to day-to-day struggles, said Leger pollster Steve Mossop,

“It’s a long laundry list: cost of living, housing, affordability, property taxes, spending, homelessness, traffic, policing,” said Mossop, Leger’s Western Canada executive vice-president.

A Leger poll earlier in the municipal campaign found 57 per cent of Metro Vancouver voters were looking for change and half of residents thought their cities were on the wrong track. But the scope of turnover from Saturday’s vote surprised many political watchers.

Metro Vancouver incumbent mayors fell in Vancouver, Surrey, Delta, New Westminster, West Vancouver, Port Moody, Maple Ridge, and Langley City and Township.

This trend repeated itself in other parts of the province, where mayors seeking re-election were defeated in cities like Prince George, Kamloops, Penticton, Quesnel and Fort St. John.

With the exception of Brad West who won Port Coquitlam in a landslide, some re-elected mayors achieved narrower margins of victory compared to the last election in 2022, including in Kelowna, Victoria, and North Vancouver City.

In Abbotsford, Mayor Ross Siemens held onto his seat, but only three incumbent councillors were re-elected, as voters filled the council with a large slate of newcomers.

“In Abbotsford, we got both stability and change,” said political scientist Hamish Telford with the University of the Fraser Valley.

There doesn’t seem to be an overall pattern, Telford said, that explains the changes at city halls across B.C.: Vancouver switched from a conservative council to a progressive one, while New Westminster traded a progressive mayor for a more conservative one.

Delta picked a fresh, new voice in Melissa Granum, who beat the incumbent mayor and an incumbent councillor, while Surrey and Langford voted for familiar faces who had previously led those cities.

In the case of Surrey, Doug McCallum’s re-election marks the fifth time he will be mayor over the last three decades, defeating Brenda Locke, who primarily ran “to continue the progress” that she’d accomplished in her first term.

Locke and other incumbents, observers say, may have misjudged the electorate’s appetite to hear what they would do differently to improve people’s quality of life.

“I think what voters were perhaps expressing was dissatisfaction with the state of affairs. They’re just not seeing the progress they want,” Telford said.