‘I now want to finish what I started and continue building a Burnaby that works for everyone,’ Mayor Mike Hurley said in a news release announcing his re-election campaign
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Four years ago, Mike Hurley was the only name on the ballot for Burnaby mayor.
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On Oct. 17, he’ll face five challengers.
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The independent mayor is seeking a third term in the municipal election after running unopposed in 2022.
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“I now want to finish what I started and continue building a Burnaby that works for everyone,” Hurley said in a news release announcing his re-election campaign.
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And there’s plenty of competition beyond the mayor’s office. Forty-two candidates are vying for eight seats on Burnaby city council.
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Sunrise
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A rock musician. A deepsea captain. A doctor who has founded senior-care programs. A former city planner. A film and TV costume designer. A further 16 candidates are also running for seven school trustee seats.
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Burnaby is growing fast, and the city is staring down a major transformation. Its 2050 plan projects more than 146,000 additional residents, 68,000 new homes and 71,000 jobs. With that comes a host of election issues including housing, development, property taxes and public safety.
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The council race will test the long-standing stronghold of the NDP-affiliated Burnaby Citizens Association, which has held a majority of seats since 1987.
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Four of the Burnaby Citizens Association’s incumbent councillors — Joe Keithley, Maita Santiago, Daniel Tetrault and James Wang — are seeking re-election, while longtime councillors Sav Dhaliwal, Pietro Calendino and Alison Gu are stepping aside.
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The Burnaby Citizens Association says the city is “headed in the right direction, but we’ve got more to do,” and is asking voters not to “risk changing course right now.”
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One of the groups trying to change that course is New Burnaby, led by Coun. Richard T. Lee.
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Lee, the sole opposition councillor, was elected in 2022 under the One Burnaby banner after 16 years as a B.C. Liberal MLA. He’s running this election with six council candidates, pitching a city hall that is “accountable, responsive and worth trusting again.”
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“We are up against a giant, but we are determined,” Lee told Postmedia News about his grassroots party.
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Taxes and transparency are central to the party’s campaign. New Burnaby is promising to freeze property taxes in its first budget, then cap increases at inflation for the following four years. Its candidates say they would look for savings by cutting redundancies and streamlining city operations, rather than laying off staff. That would mark a shift from Burnaby’s current financial plan, which projected property-tax increases of up to seven per cent a year from 2025 to 2028. This year, the increase was 2.9 per cent.
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“That’s not affordable for residents who are living on a fixed income,” Lee criticized.
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The councillor also says Burnaby City Hall needs more healthy debate. He pointed to a motion he introduced in March 2025 asking city staff to prepare a public report showing how much elected officials earn from their various government appointments. The motion never came before council for a vote.
